Yosemite

Our family enjoys camping together. We’ve camped at the beaches for years – Doheny State Beach is a favorite and we’ve camped at Zion National Park a few times and Yosemite five times.

We always try to get reservations at the Upper Pines Campground right in the Yosemite Valley. This means that several months before our planned vacation, we set a strategy – choosing a week and a range of campsites and give everyone the date and time that the coveted and hard to get reservations will open.

On an early morning, on the 1st of the seventh month before, we all wake up early and have our hoped for reservations chosen on the National Park Service Reservation website www.recreation.gov . At exactly 7:00 a.m., the moment the reservations open, we all press enter. I usually have two computers logged in and keep pressing enter on both, most years, I can manage to get one campsite — although some years, I come up empty. Other family members, immediate and extended do the same thing at the same moment. Between several families, we’re lucky to get two or three sites and the plans for the camping adventure began. If we get more, then in-laws are invited.

John and I had purchased a new Coleman “Instant Tent” and let me tell you, this is the way to go. With this, we got our campsite set up within minutes with no arguments maybe for the first time ever.

Some years, there is a lot of water and others, the waterfalls, like Yosemite Falls are completely dry.

Back in 2011 The rivers and falls were massive – I’m not sure all the snow that fell that year ever really melted.

In July of 2011, during our first night camping, our son, Danny’s little 16 month old baby boy, William, had diarrhea and was just very fussy and couldn’t sleep. I got up to go to the camp bathroom about 3 in the morning and saw my daughter in law, Sarah, pushing little William around the campground loop in his little umbrella stroller. The motion of the stroller seemed to sooth little Willie’s discomfort.

I joined them and made it around the loop a couple of times. We whispered and laughed over by Heidi and Ned’s site, listening to someone in a tent snoring with great gusto. I then went back into my tent. Lying there, I could hear the little wheels of that stroller pass the tent every five minutes or so. I started feeling pretty darn bad for both of them and didn’t think I’d be falling back asleep any time soon. So, decided I might as well go give Sarah a break and take over the stroller duty so she could get a little rest herself. 

The campground at 3 in the morning is pretty dark; the only lights are from the bathrooms spaced every 10 or 12 campsites. William and I went around our loop once or twice and then back by Heidi’s tent, William lifted up his little hand to indicate something that caught his attention. I looked up to try to see what he was pointing at. It was hard to make it out, but right there in the light of the bathroom just 15 feet or so in front of us, I made out the silhouette of a pretty decent sized bear. (Maybe what we thought was snoring earlier was that bear?) 

I know what you’re supposed to do when you run into a bear; but, in the middle of the night, with my sweet baby grandson, I forgot all I knew and quickly turned around, growled as loud as I could and just ran and pushed that little umbrella stroller away as fast as I could. The bear had been between us and our campsite, so, by turning around, I had to run the long way through the loop to my tent. I didn’t dare look behind me. I just kept running, imagining a silent stealthy bear right on my heels. When I finally reached our tent, out of breath and flushing with adrenaline, I picked up little William and, without realizing he was buckled in, lifted him and his attached stroller up till the little stroller crashed to the ground on its side. All this while I jerked at the door zipper and tumbled in.

We laid there together with him on my chest on in my arms for the rest of the morning. I would drift off to sleep and I think William did as well. But, he would squirm and groan in obvious pain every few minutes. Finally, at dawn, with a diaper that just got filled, I was just getting ready to take him back to Sarah, when she came to my tent to get him.

In the meantime, my husband, John, woke up in great pain. (What a morning!) He disappeared for over an hour in the restroom. I sent the grandsons over to check on him, I was so worried about him. He finally came back, pale and with sunken cheeks, looking like death and said to me, “you’ve got to take me over to the clinic”. Well, we unhooked the trailer very quickly and got cleaned up enough to be seen outside of the campground. I walked over to the campsite Danny & Sarah were sharing with her parents and let them know that I was taking John over to the clinic, and as long as we were heading over, they might as well bring William on over with us.

So, just before 9:00 in the morning, the four of us, John, me, Sarah and William, pulled into the Yosemite Clinic parking lot. We waited till the doors were unlocked and were the first patients of the day. John was seen first and within just a few minutes, it was determined and confirmed that he had passed a kidney stone. By the time he actually saw the PA, the pain had subsided and he was feeling pretty much back to normal. 

By this time, William’s diarrhea had blood in it and this concerned all of us as well as the very professional caregivers there at the Yosemite Clinic. After giving William a very thorough going over, they told Danny and Sarah that they needed to get him down to the Children’s Hospital in Fresno right away. I don’t really know if they gave him a diagnosis at this point, but that would come soon enough. I’m sure Danny and Sarah would have taken William to the doctor soon, but I can’t help but think that the pain John experienced by passing that kidney stone might have been a way for us to get Willie to the clinic the minute it opened that morning.

Sarah’s parents were there with all of our family and her brother Jake, and his Fiancée, Amy Swanson. Between the two sets of grandparents and many aunts and uncles, we kept Danny and Sarah’s other two children, almost four year old, Claire and six year old, Carter. Keeping those two older kids with us up there in Yosemite while Danny and Sarah spent their times in hospitals (first Fresno and then LA) helped them out as much as anything else we could think of doing for them. 

We didn’t have electricity at our campsite, so I was constantly trying to keep my blackberry charged up in the bathroom. The lack of a charged phone, combined with limited phone reception, made it hard to keep in constant touch with Danny & Sarah while they were gone. However, they were pretty quick to identify the fact that William had an e. coli bacterial infection. And, a pretty serious e.Coli 0157 h7 strain at that. 

We hiked, rode bikes, swam and rafted in the Merced River and just tried to help all the grandchildren enjoy a wonderful week in the beautiful outdoors. The bear William and I saw on Friday morning, romped through the campsites in our loop on Saturday morning. We kept busy, held a special family prayer and felt comfort knowing that William was receiving good care for his condition.

After a couple of days in the Fresno Children’s Hospital, they found that William was one of the 5 – 10% of e. coli cases to get a horrible complication, HUS (Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome) that shuts down the kidneys and adds another extra level risk. With this new information, on Sunday, July 10th, William was airlifted from Fresno to Los Angeles. 

We all stayed in Yosemite for five more days and made a detour to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to see our little grandson and to drop off Carter and Claire on way home. I think we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies driving down Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood in our Expedition with the heaped up trailer filled with camping gear and covered up with blue tarps and bungee cords. We didn’t care. We stopped by a Target in Bakersfield to get some clean clothes and new shoes to wear in the hospital. 

It was tough seeing our little whirling dervish of non-stop energy just lying in a hospital crib hooked up to I.V.s and, worse yet, a dialysis machine. At this point, his belly had swollen up quite a bit. Something wasn’t just right with the little fella

After another day or two, we found out that William had another worst case scenario. His colon had necropsied and ruptured. He had to be rushed into emergency surgery to remove the section dead colon and to clean up from the rupture. From here, William’s day to day situation, progress and support is well documented in this blog www.williamantoniotodd.blogspot.com .

You can go back to the oldest posts and see the details. What it all comes down to is that for a few days there, we weren’t sure just what God’s will for little Will was but through prayer and faith, we felt comforted and just had to trust in whatever God’s will was. We had several little sayings that helped us through this ordeal. One of them was, “Where there’s a Will there’s a way” with so many meanings for us.

About every second or third day for the 5 or 6 weeks that he was in Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and then Kaiser Sunset, we’d drive from our home for about an hour to stay with William for a few hours and then drive back home. One night, I spent the night to let Sarah go back to the Ronald McDonald House and get a real night’s sleep. Knowing that Sarah had been doing that every night, my respect for her grew immeasurably through that exhausting long night. On August 8th, we celebrated his sister, Claire’s, fourth birthday at the Ronald McDonald house and on the 29th, Danny’s birthday in the Kaiser Hospital cafeteria. These were memorable new experiences.

William had his surgery to reconnect his colon in September of that year. His kidneys were compromised and he continues follow-up care. But we’re a grateful family. He’s now a very strong, smart and athletic boy. He loves baseball, reptiles and being outdoors.

Life is always interesting and often unpredictable. We’re glad that our love and faith helped us weather this unforeseen trial and come out stronger in faith and our love and support of each other. We’ve seen overwhelming expressions of love from friends, acquaintances and even strangers – many of who are now friends. 

That summer will be one we will never ever forget. Our memories will be of beauty, nature, hospitals, fatigue, and worry and of prayer, faith, love, friendship, family and answered prayers.