Ice

The very first thing the doctors told Thomas after his diagnosis was that he needed to ice his leg for 2 hours every 20 minutes. It seemed easy enough that the time, but it proved to be a difficult feat. Tom quickly realized that the longer he iced his leg, the more it felt injured and the yellower if got. YELLOW. That was hard. 

His mother shared this tender experience: One day, around 9 months after the diagnosis, Thomas was soaking his leg in a trash can full of ice and he was weeping. I walked up and asked him what was wrong and his response brought tears to my eyes, he told me "mom whenever I close my eyes and push really hard I fall over". That was one of the early dumb things he's ever done. The tears in my eyes were from laughing. Then he got out of the trash and his leg was as yellow as mustard. That made me cry some more. 

Although this is a story of the struggles of the early moths of icing, it continued to be hard to this very day. "I'm used to it now" says Whatcott, "I used to be self conscious about the yellow leg, but now I just tell people that I'm Aisan...that helps".

Please keep Thomas in your prayers. He needs all the help he can get for the last year of icing his leg and whatever the next four years of heart treatment might bring. God bless you, Thomas.