Conference Weekend

We took advantage of General Conference weekend to listen on the radio as we took a late season drive to the Uinta mountains. What can be more inspiring than seeing the beauty of God's world in fall, and hearing the words of his prophets, all at once?  

We went up the Mirror Lake highway and along the Upper Provo River.  It was overcast and late in the year for leaves, but we were still rewarded with stunning patches of yellow amidst the pines. The kids loved the river, the falls and Mirror lake, weather notwithstanding.

The only sad part of the trip for me concerned health -- of both forests and children.  First, I have never seen the forests look so sick. It has been a dry year, true, but there is something deeper about the stress they show.  Just look at all the dead pine trees in the photo below.  They didn't look like that when I was a kid. They were always lush and verdant, brimming with life.  I don't know about global warming one way or another, and it certainly is a big question, in my view, whether it is man made or not (there have, after all, been much warmer periods on the earth before man existed, if you believe what the archeologists say, and I understand it may only take one really big volcano to knock us back to the ice age in any event).  That said, something sure is happening, and I wish it weren't. Pines are too beautiful to be this distressed.  I tremble at the thought of what one ill-placed match could do.

There were more pressing matters this trip, though -- Alden was recovering from a wicked croup virus that Kate had brought home earlier in the week. Both he and Kate managed to over come it after about three very intense days, but on this trip, Alden was still hurting, and Keegan was about to begin a seven day ordeal.

This beautiful, lively little boy would soon be spending days and nights in our bedroom, fighting a fever that medicine could barely control and coughing the deepest, most raspy cough you have ever heard. While those things were bad, they were not the worst. Every wheezing breath sounded like it was being sucked through a coffee straw. He grew exhausted just from trying to breathe.  And the rattling in his throat and chest, particularly at night, caused me to lay awake for hours, listening to make sure the next one came.

It really weighed on me. This was different from Alden's and Kate's illness. They each had maybe two bad nights, then seemed to improve. Keegan never really improved. Medicine sometimes worked, but sometimes it didn't.  There were a series of midnight trips to Walgreens, 2:00 A.M. steam baths, and much casting about for help.  Finally, the following Saturday, we went to the doctor, who was concerned about pneumonia.   She wanted an X-ray, but we couldn't get it done on Saturday.  Thinking Sunday was not an option, we planned to go first thing Monday morning.

Saturday night began badly, however.  He was very feverish, and struggling to breathe when we returned from a cousin's baptism.  He fought the nebulizer we tried to put over his face, crying a broken-hearted, raspy cry and ripping it off time after time. By Sunday after church, he had a fever of 102.5 degrees, which an advil/tylenol cocktail failed to lower.  He was exhausted and lifeless, breathing only shallow breaths.

I decided to take him to the hospital for the X-ray.  Just as we went to get in the car, my mom and dad arrived. My dad is the best man I know, and a thought hit me forcefully -- we need to give him a Priesthood blessing.  We did so in the back seat of the car, with Keegan slumped over in his car seat.  It was short, but we felt an urgent inspiration to bless him with health.

By the time we reached the hospital (five minutes away), his fever was gone.  He ran to the fish tank, smiling that trademark face-splitting grin that is the most wonderful thing in the world.  He himself answered the intake nurse's questions about his symptoms, emphatically insisting that he did not have a rash. The x-ray was negative.  His fever never returned.  That night he breathed well, and the next night we felt comfortable enough to put him in Alden's room.

There are some, perhaps many, who would chalk this up to coincidence, and truly, I don't understand why God chooses to bless some but not others with health.  But you should have seen him before we gave him the blessing. He was so sick. The turnaround was unbelievably immediate. I just feel so strongly that this was something special.  I have no idea why of all people and at this time we were so blessed.  But I do know how grateful I am for the Priesthood, and a Father that exemplifies Christ each and every day.

We are all back to normal now, but my faith is a little stronger, my heart a little more hopeful about the world, than it was in the midst of a distressed forest just the week before. May God bless us all.