Girls camp 2013-Stand Firm

This was a special year for us and girls camp. It was the first time that I and all my girls were there together. It may also be the last, since I've been in YW for almost 3 years now. I almost talked myself out of going but decided I couldn't pass up this opportunity. 

I was a level leader with the 1st levels, which included Sadie this year. We had a huge level, 25 girls, and 5 adult leaders. Huge tent!!

Camp began with us pulling handcarts 4 1/2 miles into camp. We had a devotional and lunch and a workshop from our stake leaders along the way. It took from 9 am to 3 pm. The girls were wondering if we were ever going to get to camp. At the devotional each handcart company got a treasure chest and inside it were small copies of the Book of Mormon with custom sewn fabric covers. They were sweet!

That night we had a delicious dinner, dud our lip syncs, and had game night/dance party.

I was hoping that the hiking and dancing would have worn the girls out and they'd go to sleep but no such luck! Some of them stayed up til 5. I don't know what there was to stay up for.........

The next day we did devotional, service projects and certification. We had Book of Mormon games, then the mystery dinner. The dinner was a murder mystery and the people at each table were the suspects. Between courses of dinner clues were read and discussed. We had to say who we thought it was and why. Then Bishop Duke from 3rd ward stood up to reveal the answer. When he asked, 'have any of you heard a story like thus before?' It clicked in my brain that I had. It was the story if the murder of Pahoran the chief judge in the Book of Mormon. It was such an awesome way to relate the BoM to our day!! Loved it!

Then we had our commitment hike and s'mores. The girls actually went to bed good that night. Guess their late night caught up with them.

The last day we had devotional, a testimony meeting and did some fun crafts to remind us of standing firm. Then we loaded up our stuff, cleaned camp, took down tents and came home. 

Although we were so happy to shower and sleep in our own beds, we loved camp and will remember it as a wonderful learning experience and a LOT of fun!!

Sweet summer

There are just some things that go with summer;

-BBQ

-fireworks

-swimming/running thorough sprinklers

-icy cold beverages(I used to love soda pop but my favorite now is good old water)

-s'mores/toasting marshmallows

-camping

-family vacations

-gardens

-county fair

-night games

-watermelon

One thing that also belongs to summer is the juicy sweet flavor of a ripe strawberry. We love freezer strawberry jam here and we have not had any for at least five years. I know it's been that long because I haven't made any since we moved here! 

So when strawberries went on sale a week or two ago we snagged some for jam making. The kids and I ended making 8 batches of jam. 

Oh! How we missed it! And oh! How we have pigged out on it! We've probably already eaten through 2 batches. 

It truly is summer in a jar!

2600 miles in a car....

We had the opportunity to travel to the Seattle WA area in April to be present for Jordan and Lindsey's wedding. It's been 7 months in the planning.
We left on Sunday April 15 and drove to Orem. There we crashed on Uncle K and Aunt N's floor. We got up on Monday, grabbed a bite to eat and hit the road again. 12ish hours later we made it to Uncle E and Aunt M's house in Vancouver WA where we again crashed for a night.
We got in the car again on Tuesday and drove to Pacific City, OR and spent 24 hours at the beach, where a very cool beach house(separate post) had been rented for the night. On Wednesday we sadly left the beach behind and drove 5 hours up to Bellevue, WA. There were a couple of stops on the way to collect the goods for the wedding luncheon we were hosting after the sealing and before the reception, before we got to our hotel. Thanks to Uncle E we were about 1/4-1/2 mile from the temple!
Thursday we only drove as far as the temple, the church for the dinner and the yacht club for the reception, which were pretty close, relatively speaking. 15 min max! Almost a day of rest. Our goal was to get up early on Friday the 19th and drive like mad to get home that night since Curtis and Nina had a track meet on Saturday in Blanding. Unfortunately we didn't get up and going when we would have liked and the weather was not cooperative. I think we hit snow 3 times and got rained on most of the way, most heavily in Boise. We got to Orem about 2 am after 17 hours on the road and dropped Ford off. Curtis and I looked at each other and said, 'That's it. We're done.' It just didn't seem wise to try to get home when we were so tired and the road over the summit was likely to be bad. So we found a hotel and crashed for 8 hours. Saturday we leisurely drove the remaining 4 hours home. We had a wonderful time but spending almost a week straight sitting in a car is a bit crazy. The kids were mostly awesome. It could have been a nightmare but it was not, thanks to them being patient and getting along.
Here are some pictures I took from my seat in the car:

Look! We haven't even left town yet and they're miserable.

This is the weather that greeted us Monday morning when we left Orem for WA. Fun!

And even more FUN! (Near Willard Bay)

Ipods and Ipads for music, games and audio books. Sure helped us pass the time.

The big kids were pretty helpful (and entertaining) with the little kids. We have some awesome kids.

It was tight quarters in the Suburban. We are thankful to have a 9 seater!

Probably one of our first sightings of the Snake River. It seems big til you see the Columbia!

The Snake River gorge near Twin Falls. You have no idea that this big crack in the earth is there until you come up to the edge of it. Wow! (Sorry for the finger in the way. Maybe I'll edit it out, maybe not.)

More snow falling as we drove through the mountains from LeGrande to Pendleton OR

There are lots of bridges between Portland OR and Vancouver WA....this is one of them.

Heading south through Portland to the beach.

Lots of overpasses in Portland. The blue van in front of us is Uncle Erin!

Heading into a tunnel. We thought it was interesting that there were buildings and houses above the tunnel. 

Inside the tunnel. Interestingly, on the other side of it there wasn't as much 'civilization', just lots of green.

Just out of the canyons into the valley where Tillamook is. Wondered why Grandpa couldn't have inherited fertile land like this to raise his cows on. Those looked like some happy cows! The green was intoxicating.

More happy cows.

The private community where the beach house was located. All the landscaping was natural. No mowed grass etc. Just a very windswept look, including the sand all over the roads.

Just crossing a portion of the Columbia River on our way back to WA. Lots of yachts and sailboats here.

Leaving Seattle and heading home this is what we encountered almost the entire way. Rain. In WA? haha

Thankfully we had replaced our windshield before our trip. It has had a leak and it would rain in the car when it rained outside. No inside rainstorms on our trip!~

This was near Snoqualmie Pass. Still quite a bit of snow up there. Wishing I could load some up and bring it home for our mt.

Just a lake we passed on our way home. I thought the low lying clouds, tree-covered mountains and lake were pretty. Probably out to edit out the road, but since most of my pictures were taken from the car, it accurately records our trip.

Eastern WA?? Seriously I wondered if we had already gotten to San Juan County. Just sage brush and rock and bits of grass. Soil is a different color, but the vegetation is pretty much the same.

apparently, that dry landscape can be transformed into productive farmland. Amazing what a good source of water can do. I kept thinking of the phrase, "the desert shall blossom as the rose."  Grape vines in front and fruit trees in the rear. Near Richland and Yakima WA

Just showing the contrast of the natural vegetation and the irrigated crops. 

life now

So that's how it ended and where we are today. When I got home I continued the Lovenox until I had enough Coumadin in me to stop the Lovenox. Thankfully, the Coumadin is about $8 for a month's worth of meds. It is not something I wanted to be on forever, it is not a thing you want in your body, they use it for rat poison! But it is effective and so I took it until the six month mark from my PE. It made my hair brittle, but I didn't notice any really bad effects from it. I am thankful that it kept me from forming any new clots while the old ones aged and hardened and didn't launch any more emboli.

Last week I went to see Dr. Black and look at the results of the blood tests I had done in Sept. He said that he could not see any reason to keep taking the Coumadin.  My test results all indicated normal blood clotting. He did ask me to take a baby aspirin daily for now. I am happy to do that. 

After getting the okay to be done with Coumadin, I had a ceremonial smashing of the remaining pills. I hope I never need them again. I hope this was an isolated incident and that there will not be a repeat of it.

Its an interesting place that Curtis and I find ourselves now.  We have been having children for so long, that's really all we know. I don't think  either of us had any idea we'd have so many, but we are thankful for the wonderful family we have. As we look to the future, we are excited to be moving to the grandparent stage, where the new people entering our family are coming by marriage and someone's womb besides mine. It is a bittersweet thing to come to the end of the childbearing era, and we mourn the child that could have been. I know that Heavenly Father knows the end from the beginning and will make all things right for that child as well as for me and that he knows that in a different situation I would have been willing to try again to give that spirit a mortal body. As it was, it just couldn't be. I have felt His comfort as I have pondered and mourned this event. I am thankful for the knowledge of the plan of salvation and happiness that gives us understanding of this mortal journey. It surely brings peace to know that someone is in charge and all will be made right. And that someday we will understand why things had to be as they are.  

In a couple of weeks, Jordan will be married. He met his fiancé, Lindsey, in ID and it has been such a good thing for him. He has direction in his life now. He is registered to start school and knows what he wants to study. We are so thrilled to see so much good in his life. The gospel is such a blessing. The sealing of two people to each other is such a blessing.  We cannot wait to be part of the beginning of yet one more eternal family in the Seattle Temple. (pictures will be forthcoming)

More fun in Provo

After being in the ER for a bit Dr. Ludlow came in to see me and examine me. He took the time to talk with us and go over all the details with us. He explained the medication that I had been given and the necessity for it. It was very hard to take a drug you know will abort a fetus but if Mom bleeds to death there is no baby anyway. That is only logical and there was really little other choice. He talked to us about the possibility of the D&C, actually at that point he was pretty sure it was going to be necessary, as well as the possibility of a hysterectomy.

When he did the exam he removed a huge clot from me that was about the size of a grapefruit. It was still early morning, so he wanted me to have one more dose of the Cytotec, which works by making the uterus clamp down, thereby slowing the bleeding) and see how that worked before deciding to do the D&C. They wheeled me up to a room and put me in bed. Curtis went in search of food. Later that morning, Dr. Ludlow came and checked me again and the bleeding had stopped significantly and he told me that he felt that the D&C would not now be necessary. He wanted me to stay the day in the hospital and be monitored and if all was well they would release me that evening.

So I spent the day lying in a hospital bed. It was not an ICU type of room, it was just a regular room on the surgery recovery floor. I found it sort of funny that there was such haste to get me there to UVRMC and so little after I got there. The nurses took good care of me and removed all those lovely IVs that were not needed. But mostly they left us alone and we had a quiet day.

Dr. Ludlow came in later in the afternoon and said they were happy to release me to go home. He did say that it would be a good idea for us to stay in the valley for a couple of days to monitor bleeding. If it picked up again, we would need to come back in. We had a good visit with him and asked him if he thought I would be able to go to SC for Ford's graduation from Basic Training. He seemed to think it would be fine and that led to a discussion about his time in the military.  I think he probably spend 30 extra minutes talking to us. If anyone has a need for a good OB in the Ut. Valley area I would highly recommend Dr. Ludlow. He was fantastic.

After finally getting all the necessary paperwork done I was released. Nicole had brought over the girls' car for us to use for the couple of days that we were to stay. We called my Uncle Boyd and asked if we could use their downstairs bedroom for a day or two. He was gracious enough to let us come.

We had had the dr. call in a RX for more Lovenox to Walgreens since it is just kitty-corner from the hospital. We went over there to pick it up and to get alcohol wipes and sanitary pads and such. It was the biggest  joke we've ever had played on us. They wanted to charge us $2600 for the shots. Curtis was so mad. He rarely gets mad enough that anyone would notice, but he was irate. I think he was very tired as well.  He had them check things again to see if a mistake had happened. It had not. He asked them the price of one shot to get us through the night. $150. Needless to say, we could not afford to pay that, but how could we afford not to?

In the end of it all, the pharmacist there told us he could transfer the RX to Walmart. He even called there to make sure they had the meds. So we left Walgreens and raced to Walmart to make it before the pharmacy closed.  There we got the shots we needed for 3 days and paid $300 for them.  I wondered then, and have since, how in the world Walgreen's stays in business. Who in their right mind would  take their prescriptions there?

We spent the next couple of days resting, visiting friends, and doing a bit of shopping. Mr. Shakespeare, Curtis's boss, came to pick us up on Thurs. evening to take us home. It was an uneventful trip home and it was nice to be home again.  Nice to see the kids and try again, to get our lives back to normal....

Here We Go Again....

Sunday evening, the bleeding began to be heavier. I told Curtis that I was bleeding and that I thought it was all going to end in miscarriage. I laid in bed wishing I could change the outcome. I wondered why it seemed that so many times when I've found myself pregnant and had a hard time accepting it initially,  miscarriages seemed to follow, especially after I've come to terms with being pregnant and getting excited about it.  There is a lot of guilt involved in that, wondering if in some way you've caused the miscarriage and feeling bad that you weren't more excited about the pregnancy to begin with. It has been one of my hardest challenges. I think I've only had one miscarriage where I had planned on the pregnancy and was excited from the get go about it. There was no guilt that time and it was easy to recover from the miscarriage.

Towards midnight, I passed some tissue and it seemed to be attached to me. I thought it was the amniotic sac. I didn't try to detach it, fearing more bleeding, but covered it and got Curtis up, we told Mom and we drove to the Emergency Room in a sober mood. I was checked in and they called the on-call dr. to come examine me. He looked at my chart and history and asked some questions and then did an exam. It was determined that it was only a clot that I had passed (a clot?? on anticoagulants?) and that he could not see any active bleeding from my cervix. It was about 2 a.m. and they decided they would like to keep me for a few hours and then do an ultrasound when the tech got there in the morning.  We agreed and they put us in a room to rest. Not much bleeding during that resting time, quite light.

The US tech came and got me sometime between 7-8 in the morning. I was not expecting to see anything and I actually hadn't seen anything but I surely heard the 'whoosh-whoosh' of a little heart beating away. There it was on the screen, a little fetus, with a furiously beating heart. I was so  surprised. I was so sure it was gone. I began to feel a glimmer of hope at that point that maybe this was not going to end in miscarriage. After the US they sent me home and told me to keep off my feet, but to come back if the bleeding got worse. I was told to follow up with Dr. Black.

I spend the majority of that day in my favorite chair. It was becoming molded to me, I'd sat in it for so long. The bleeding continued but was very light. As evening came on, I wondered if I should take my Lovenox shot and decided that I should, so I  did at 10 pm. About 1/2 hour after taking the shot I again felt some large clumps of tissue being passed from my body and the bleeding seemed to be picking up. By midnight we decided we had better head to the hospital again. So again, we woke my mom to tell her what was going on and then drove to the hospital. Again, I was checked in and the same dr. in the same clothing, came in to examine me, again. Poor guy, he'd been there all that time.

Again, he thought that all the tissue passed was clots, no fetal tissue. He said he still could see no active bleeding in the exam and again he encouraged me to go home and rest. He suggested that I shower and get cleaned up and that would help me feel better. I was rather a mess at that point.

So we drove home and I tried to just climb into bed, but Curtis thought the dr. was right and talked me into showering. It felt really good at first to wash all that day's troubles away, but as I was standing there, eyes closed, and letting the water run over me, I opened my eyes to see red everywhere, running and swirling away down the drain. I stood there in disbelief for a time. It was very surreal to watch my blood wash away. I then tried to figure out how in the world I was going to get out of the shower because the blood was not stopping. Then I started to get panicked because I could not figure out how to get out without covering the bathroom in blood. I finally called for Curtis to come help me, as I did not know what else to do, and it was still a mess. We packed a large chux type pad between my legs and put on some scrubs they had given me and off we went again to the hospital.

By this time, I was feeling very shaky and lightheaded. Probably mostly from fear, but I was very afraid that I might bleed to death. They took one look at me this time and immediately got me in the ER room and started taking care of me.

These are the dr.'s notes from the ER: "Approximately 2 hours later, the patient again returned. She had had mass bleeding. She  reported that the floor of her shower and her bathroom, in her words,'looked like somebody had been murdered.' There was an extensive amount of blood. When she came to us, she had filled several chux and several tampons. When she came in, she was pail and diaphoretic. She was lightheaded and complained of being very dizzy. She had a look of panic on her face. Her vitals were P 100, BP 115/66. Her pulse decreased. She was in the 100s-115 on her pulse and 80s-90 systolic.

Immediately on her coming back to us, we put in two large bore IVs and stared running lactated Ringer's wide open. I spoke with Dr. Ludlow, who is a High Risk OB physician at Utah Valley Hospital. We relayed all of this to Dr. Ludlow. He recommended that we give 600 mcg of Cytotec, stating that I should inform the patient that this would like abort the fetus. Dr. Ludlow stated that he wanted the patient flown immediately and that she should have a transfusion begun immediately. I discussed this with the patient and she agreed. I also explained to the patient the effects of the Cytotec, and she also agreed to this. 

Dr. Ludlow said that the patient's course of treatment, on her arrival there, would be an emergency D&C regardless, due to the fact that she was bleeding and that there was immediate risk to the mother's life. 

We contacted the flight crew and they were on the way. We continued with lactated Ringer's giving the patient blood while we were waiting for the flight crew to come. After the Cytotec was given, the patient did begin to have a little bit better color, higher blood pressures, and less tachycardia. She was doing much better. She was speaking in full sentences. She no longer had the look of panic on her face that she had had before. She was transferred to UVRMC, under the care of Dr. Ludlow, in guarded condition. Dr. Ludlow also expressed to us that we would need to have the ability to do an emergency hysterectomy if we did  a D&C of this patient while she was on this much Lovenox."

My memories of my time in that ER room were of some nurses who did everything in their power to help me out. Sheila, particularly, was fantastic and competent in all she did to treat me and also to treat me as a person, not just a medical emergency. I was cold, probably from shock and blood loss and felt often that I was going to hyperventilate. They kept me covered with warm blankets, several of them, as well as monitoring my bleeding and changing bedding and pads when needed so I didn't have to sit in a mess. I think I caused a bit of a stir there that night. There was lots of rushing around and adrenalin seemed to be flowing. I noticed that when one nurse was trying to put in IV's she was a bit shaky. I had to have some large IV's so that blood transfusion could be done as well as in prep for a possible surgery. I remember the blood transfusion and how much better I started to feel after that. I was given 2 units of blood. I am so appreciative of the donors who gave their blood to help me out. I  know I should donate more often, since I have the universal donor type, O-.  Something to definitely plan on in the future.

I remember wondering again if this was going to be it. When I was lightheaded, the sounds were funny and far away and I wondered if I was heading into that tunnel. Thankfully, once the blood was transfused all those symptoms left me and I actually felt ok.

We did a deja vu of the ambulance transport and airplane ride. This time the plane was the IHC Lifeflight. They were awesome. When we arrived at UVRMC I was rushed into the ER this time.......

My New Normal

As I try to recall those first days home from the hospital I realize that they are starting to get fuzzy already. Good thing I'm writing about it now, as I may lose what little I remember of them.

the lovely medicine that kept me from more clots, shot  into me 2xday. ouch

My days consisted of giving myself a shot at 8 am, sitting in a chair in the living room for most of the day, watching my mom do all my work, giving myself a shot at 8 pm and then attempting to sleep in the same chair I sat in all day.

I still could not lie down to rest. Apparently that pain was caused by the lung tissue that died due to the blockage. Things I read on the internet suggested that it was from blood seeping out of them into the pleural sac, or the lining of the lungs. I also noticed as time went on that I could actually hear/feel my lungs rubbing that lining as I breathed. It didn't hurt, it was just a very strange sensation I can't really explain because I didn't really hear it, I guess I felt the vibration of it and it seemed I could hear it.

I was also extremely short of breath still. They told me that it would take a month or two to get my lung power back, and that it might never be quite the same. So to even go up the seven stairs to my bedroom was pretty arduous at first. I would step on a step and wait a few seconds for air, then step to the second step. Any amount of exertion caused me to be very breathless and as I struggled for breath, I had pain. So I learned to just sit and not do much because then I didn't hurt. Bending over was really painful, as was sneezing and coughing, and incredibly, yawning. I never knew how much air a person had to inhale to yawn. I had to take it in in several small breaths before I could yawn. Very strange.

One of the most disconcerting effects was that I absolutely could not concentrate on anything. Nicole and Stacy both brought me books in the hospital and normally that would be something I would devour, since I had the time. But both in the hospital and at home I found I could not follow a story-line to save my life.  I wondered at times if I would ever get my brain back. I could not crochet either. Most of my time was spent talking to Mom, who continued to stay with us to help out, and listening to episodes of different series on the Mormon Channel. Love that channel on my phone.

I was trying at this time to figure out all the insurance stuff and how we were going to pay for 7-8 months of Lovenox shots. (how I thought my poor brain could figure it out makes me laugh now, but I was very worried about it.) Our medical insurance has RX benefits, but only after the deductible is met. They also have a mail order pharmacy where you can get bulk meds at a discounted price. I determined that that was what I should look at. I called them and was in the process of setting things up, when a little voice in my head suggested that I wait until I was past the time where I often miscarry a baby. I told them I would call them back when I was ready to activate the Rx.

I should mention that I had a dr. appt with Dr.  Black during the week after I got home. I wanted to have him be updated on what was going on, get his instructions and get my OB care rolling. I told him that I would like to have an ultrasound to see if there really was a baby there as I didn't want to be taking these shots if there wasn't a baby there and I could take a cheaper medication. He agreed and we did a quick ultrasound and saw a sac with a little baby in it with a rapidly beating heart. I knew then that all the expensive shots in the world were worth it, to have one more little one to love and raise.

When the little voice whispered to wait on the bulk meds, I just thought it was good common sense. I didn't get a feeling of doom or anything, yet a couple of days later when the spotting started I realized that I had been given a bit of inspiration. The spotting was light and continued for a couple of days and I thought maybe it would go away, but in the back of my mind I had two thoughts.

1. I have never (ever!) kept a pregnancy after I have started spotting, and
2. I was on anticoagulants (commonly called blood thinners) and was very worried about what a miscarriage might be like on them. Dr. Black had told me that if I had ANY bleeding I should get to the hospital right away.

The spotting started on Thursday I think and was just light until Sun night.........