Nailed it! #3

MRIs are pretty interesting devices. Our body contains a lot of hydrogen atoms which all have their own tiny magnetic field. These fields are pretty random in the body and cancel each other out, which is why you're not just a big walking magnet. However, if you zap your body with a really really strong magnetic field for just a fraction of a second, that's the M in MRI, the magnet, you can get some of them to line up in the same direction. When you release the field, they wobble back to the position they were in before, that's the R in MRI, resonance. You can actually measure this wobbling if you have the right machine (which is what a MRI is) and you can map it all out and make really really detailed pictures of the insides of a body, which is the I, imaging.

Movie night. They really missed him.

MRI is a pretty amazing technology, but it has three downsides. The first is that you have to slide into a tube, which freaks some people out. The second is the noise generated by switching the magnetic field on and off at a high frequency. It's loud. Ear plug's needed loud. The third is that you have to stay very very still while you're being measured so the images aren't blurry. These last two are a bit of an issue when you're a five year old who doesn't like loud noises or holding still. I'm pretty sure that an image of his whole body would have been really blurry except for the one foot that was strapped to the table. That was the important foot, and they were happy with the images, so they finally let us go back to the room and start the medicine.
The medicine was IV antibiotics every 6 or 8 hours, depending on which of the two was next. This means that they started together. Then in 6 hours there was another dose. Then 2 hours after that, at 8 hours, another. Then at 12 hours the second dose of the first and then at 16 the second dose of the second and then at 18 the third dose of the first and then at 24 both of them together again. Couple that with measuring vitals every four hours, and then try to find a gap in that schedule for sleep.
Three nights of that, and not a whole lot of sleep. After the first night I gave up trying to sleep in the recliner and just climbed into bed with my son. He's a hard boy to sleep next to because he flops like a fish, but it turns out I'd rather sleep next to a live salmon than in a recliner. Eventually three days passed, and honestly I could tell stories about every one of them, but in the name of brevity I'll skip to the last one.
We were woken at 5:30 on the last morning by a large stern woman. She needed blood and she was in no mood to discuss anything about it. Ninety seconds out of a dead sleep and she had two vials of blood in her bag. She swept out of the room leaving behind her a cloud of perfume scented confusion and a small weeping boy. It was.....traumatic. After that we waited. Another MRI was needed to show that the infection that had started in the joint of the big toe had gone away before release was possible. It was scheduled for 8:00 am, so of course it didn't happen until about 2:00. My wife relieved me from my position at the hospital and brought the boy home at the end of the day. By that time he had become so acclimated to life in a medical facility that he fell asleep during the second MRI, loud noises and all.
Now we're a few days into a week of oral antibiotics and still living under the threat that the infection will return and send us back to the hospital. We had a bit of a scare yesterday when his foot got very very sore and started to get red. I actually brought him back to the hospital, but by the time we had waited for an hour things started to feel better. All we can figure is that he had aggravated the toe running around at preschool. We were able to able to walk out of the hospital before ever seeing a doctor or even officially checking in thanks to the absurdly long wait times in the ER. 
This whole thing has been quite an adventure, one that I'm hoping we don't have to repeat any time soon. I have learned a few things though. Nails are dirty, but shoes are dirtier. If you step on a nail, do it barefoot, you'll be a lot better off. If you're sent to see a specific doctor, try really hard to see that doctor and not get caught in the web of admissions and bureaucracy that exists in the hospital. If you have to go to the emergency room for anything, bring a snack and something to do. If it's not serious enough that you need an ambulance to get there, you're going to wait. And wait. And wait. You can spare the extra two minutes it will take to make your wait bearable.
I hope some of you enjoyed the telling of this story. Even though it took me three days to type, it's still the short version. Catch me in real life sometime and pull up a chair and I'll tell you the rest.