THIS HAS BEEN SPOOKY...downright SCARY

We've seen a lot of Elders Rencher and Patton, lately. They are two of our all-time-favorite Astoria Elders who are now serving together at the mission office. About three weeks ago, Elder Patton (who's Dad is a Salt Lake surgeon and Mom is an RN) was over-confident and encouraged by his caring companion, to perform self-surgery on a wart he had on his hand with a pocket knife they had at their pad. They sterilized the knife with a gas flame and he cut the wart out and then he developed a bad infection. We will never know if his hand and foot conditions were related, but after taking an antibiotic, he developed a baffling problem on his feet. He was suffering from several oozing, weepy new sores each day. It became horribly painful and we were all very worried about him. He saw six different specialists here in Queens and yet the problem was escalating hourly.


Friday night, yes Halloween, the Bennions were "putting out fires" with other missionaries and asked us to take Elder Patton to the hospital. We headed out to Long Island Jewish, North Shore Medical Center. It's the best facility we have found..clean, well staffed and stocked, ready for major emergencies. They took enough blood for all the tests they needed to run, and he experienced his first IV. All three doctors agreed that they thought it was a severe fungal infection and he needed to see their dermatologist the following Monday. His ER doctor, Thomas Caggiano, a future anesthesiologist, was "cool" and did a great job of reassuring Elder Patton he would be OK, cleaning his sores, and bandaging them and then he put him in comfy, snugly socks so we could get him home. After we filled his medications and took them to Rego Park, we got home at 2 AM. On the way home we did see some frightening party goers and lots of NYC Cops on Steinway Street outside the Eternity Lounge. So much for being in early Halloween night!

This week we are happy to report that Elder Patton is on the mend. A Flushing dermatologist was most impressive in helping to treat his fungus. Sister Bennion has been pushing yogurt to replace the good bacteria his drugs have been killing to help balance his system and he's healing. We are hopeful he'll be back to work this next week. It's been a real learning experience for all of us. Elder Rencher will be an incredibly caring father someday. We have been so impressed with him and know that Elder Patton has been very blessed to benefit from his TLC.