I Hungry

I Hungry
Kellen said I needed this bumper sticker for my backpack.
I am grouchy! So be prepared for a grouchy post!
I am getting tired of walking around the house to the Dora song “Backpack Backpack” sung by my kids (Mekenzie). I am tired of making food and not eating it. I am tired of having this tube hanging from me and tripping on it. I am tired of having to lug this 20+ pound backpack with me everywhere I go. I am tired of having to go to the bathroom a million times a day. I am tired of “beeping” and sounding like I am carrying a bomb. I am tired of gaining weight even though nothing goes into my mouth. I am tired of being tired, and nauseas, and always having a tummy ache. I am tired of getting up at night and having to untangle all of the cords plugged in around my backpack. I am tired of tripping over my tube on the stairs, getting in the car, on the couch. I am tired of forgetting I am tethered to a bag only to walk away and rip the tape that is holding the tube onto my skin. I am tired of it being so hard to shower because I can’t get the arm my pic line is in wet. I am tired of asking my husband to help me wash my hair. I am tired of only being able to move 3 feet from where I drop my bag. I am tired my house is falling apart around me, and the laundry is not getting done because it is impossible to carry clothes with my huge bag. I am tired of sleeping but not feeling rested. I am tired that since CA is having a nursing crisis no one is actually in charge of my care so when I have a problem I go in circles until I realize no one cares. I am tired of getting labs drawn 1, 2 or 3 times depending on the week.
I have been on TPN or IV nutrition now for 6+ weeks. I go back and forth from feeling like its getting better to being miserable and not sure if any of this is working. On the bright side they are letting me eat some foods (yogurt, sf jello, and applesauce), the problem is anytime I put something in my mouth it makes me so sick I wish I didn’t.
I’m giving myself today to be grouchy. Then I am going to get over it and just deal with it. So Grrrrrrrrrrr …………… to be continued when I am feeling more positive (or I can fake it better then today).

Breaking the Rules!

My kids are precious. No, really precious! They are so [over] protective of me lately and what might seem cute is really not so cute anymore. Let me explain.... Other then sips of water I am not supposed to put anything in my mouth,(except gum, I think, but I am not going to ask....just in case they tell me no)!! This is a big rule. They want my stomach to heal so when I eat, it has to work and can't heal. If I even considered eating anything, before my hand actually got to my mouth Mekenzie, Kellen, or Camden would have tackled me and taken whatever I THOUGHT I might want to eat out of my hand (this might have happened once or twice).
You don't realize what a habit eating is. I get up every morning, pour my cereal, and eat while I read my email. When I get home from work I eat my lunch while I check my Facebook. Dinner is a family event at our house, I cook and we eat together as a family. Breakfast and lunch have been bareable to miss. Dinner is another story. I have to go upstairs while my family eats, it is sad but the only way I can do it (and I sit on my bed and sob feeling sorry for myself....ok enough with the dramatics).
Tonight everyone but Mekenzie and I went to bed early (yeah!!). We love our time together!! I really wanted some cheetos - really, really bad. I found some "Munchie Mix" in our cupboard and figured I would "suck" on the cheetos. Do you know how hard it is to "suck" on cheetos?? I think one or two (they were the size of pencil lead by the way, no big, good cheetos), might have slipped down my throat and into my tummy. Shhhhhhhh.... don't tell my kids, they will have my stomach pumped!!
Are you wondering if I felt satisfied? I had to have Mekenzie bring me a medication for nasuea. NO, it wasn't worth it. Next time I'm going for something better like See's Scotchmallows, my favorite treat, so when I am sick I will have at least snuck something good!! Ugggggg!

Comings and Goings

The kids keep bugging me to blog. I try to explain to them that no one ever reads our blog, and we already know what is going on in our lives. That did not make them happy so I am blogging. I haven't blogged because I figure it would take forever to get caught back up. Feel free to stop anytime if you get bored.....
Let's start with Camden.
Camden had a milestone birthday in July. He turned 8!!!! We celebrated by having family from out of town, his baptism, and his Birthday Party at Safetyville!! It was a great weekend for him!


He also completed swim lessons and finally seems to have "got it" this year!! He didn't even seemed freaked out when they jumped off the diving board!

We also spent some time doing our favorite thing - 4 wheeling (Quadding to those of you who are not from Utah).

The boys started back to school on July 26th! They LOVEd Their teacher and seem to be having a great start!!! Next up is Camden's busy soccer schedule!
I think Camden has had a great summer! He is such a good kid and can entertain himself for hours, we love it!! In fact right now he is hammering away in the garage building a bat and ball holder!!
Next is Kellen -
Kellen has spent the past many weeks playing basketball. He loves it, and I would love to say that he is part of a winning team with great players, but I am against lying, so I won't. He is a good foot and a half shorter then anyone on his team. He is however,(and I am saying this without bragging, I promise), the very best player on the team. I wish I had pictures, I will have to post them later!
Kellen also enjoyed the time with family in town. His cousin Jodan and him really had fun together. They played so good and were buddies the whole time!!


We had a ton of fun going to Jelly Belly, Quadding, Safetyville, hanging out in the hot tub, and Old Town!!
Kellen's health has been pretty good too. He had a few weeks with a lot of pain and they were concerned about a stricture but he seems to be doing pretty good making it to school most days and having a couple of pretty good weeks (yeah!)
Then there is Mekenzie. She has kept us REALLY busy this summer with all she is involved in. I have a funny feeling it is a glimpse of the future for us.
She started out the summer with her Dance Recital dancing with Elk Grove Dance. She did a beautiful ballet number and three clogging dances. She was awesome!!!


It was so fun to watch her this year in dance! It is making us look forward to her performances with the Sheldon High Dance Company!
She also had the great oppurtunity to dance in the Strauss Festival. Strauss is a festival that has been in Elk Grove for 20 or so years (I think). It is sooooo fun! Mekenzie got to ba a part of the Polka Group, which is the best part of the whole show! The boys tossed the girls in the air, spun them around, flipped them over. It was sooooo good!



She has been really busy! She spend most of the day dancing or singing. Mekenzie does not start school until Monday but she got her schedule tonight and is really excited to get started (Does dance, weight training, and English sound like a rough schedule??? She better get all A's!!!)! She has tryouts for Elk Grove Musical Theatre Companies production of Annie on Tuesday and is currently practicing for the start of school events with the Dance Company!
Kelly - I should let him write this part. He has done a little bit of fishing, helping Kellen to catch his very first fish!! He has been able get out and do a little bit of quadding but I know he has not got to do enough of either of these things! The boys keep bugging him to take them camping so I see a camping trip in their near future.
He is finally getting busy at work and he loves it! He really does like his job when things are going well and he is busy! He has been doing the mom and dad job's around here while I recover from a illness and he has done a great job (I think he is just about done with it all though!)!!
I have stayed busy with the kids, house, and work. I have had this pesky ulcer that will not go away. After 2 visits to the emergency room and numerous calls to the doctor they took a look and could not believe I was still functioning (I am guessing they don't have 3 kids, a job, and a house). Right after they took a look I was admitted to UC Davis Hospital where I spent 4 days, they inserted a pic-line, and have put me on TPN or IV nutirition. I am not able to eat ANYTHING for the next few weeks (possibly months) while they hope that it will heal. You do not relize how much eating is a habit and it is weird to not be able to do it! It has been a week and I am miserable. I still have no energy and am in some pain but hope it will quickly heal and I will soon feel better then I have in months!! I had been telling the docs for weeks I was in pain and really sick but they did not realize just how bad it was. (I was gonna post pictures but I thought that might be TMI). So if you see me with my backpack, and a tube hanging out of my shirt - don't offer me food!! I am scheduled to have the tube in until February (yes, really February) but will eventually go on a night schedule instead of the 24hours I am currently doing and adding back some soft, bland foods into my diet. We have been blessed with great neighbors and friends that have stepped up to help us out!
I think that is everything in a nutshell! If you made it this far.... AMAZING!!! I am going to be better to blog and not let it go so I feel so overwhelmed when I need to do it! Yes kids, I promise!!

17 Years

Today is a special day at our house! It is our 17th Anniversary!!! I still cannot believe that it has been that long. As I think back to all we have accomplished and all we have been through It amazes me that the time has flown by so quickly. I am grateful that I have been blessed with a man that uses his priesthood to bless our home and who is supportive and loving to me and the kids on a daily basis. We have been through the hardest yeat in either of our lives but we are making it through, together!!!
We have a tradition to head out of town for our Anniversary, a much needed weekend alone. Unfortunattly I have been really sick and spent the past week in the hospital. I even left with a fancy tube feeding me (I hate it!!), so not even a dinner out tonight. We are looking forward to a get-away in a few weeks and some much needed time alone!
We made it 17....... here's to 17 more!

SHE DID IT!
Mekenzie tried out for the Universal Rhythm team at school (the dance team). She worked really hard through a week of learning the routines then trying out in front of a team of judges. She has had to wait a very long 3 weeks to find out that she made it! Needless to say she is SOOOOO excited! And we are SOOOOOO proud of her! It will be a fun year full of dance performances for us to attend! We are so happy for her!

Surprise!

We have had a very laid back week this week. A lot of resting and recovering for us, which is what we needed. A few things HAVE caught me off guard this week though. The first one being Easter. How did Easter already get here? I am a planner, everything is always done way ahead of time so when I realized that Easter is THIS Sunday I was in a panic. My panic only increased when I went to Target and they had nothing left for Easter!!! Luckily over the last few days I have been able to get some things together and my kids will have Easter (it was a close one!).
The other happened today. I was laying on the couch, tired. I have been really tired lately but unable to sleep so when a moment comes and I get to lay on the couch it is a pretty sure thing I will fall asleep, so I did. The door bell rang, and Kellen yelled for me to get it because he did not know who it was (following the rules, good boy). At my door were two very sweet missionaries from our church. They said they had been trying to call the last couple of days, (we have been bad at answering the phone, and checking our messages), they wanted to make sure we knew we had signed up to feed them....tonight! (Now I love Kelly, he is usually so good at letting me know when he signs up for something that might need my preparation, but he didn't mention it this time. He does not even remember doing it.)
I had been so efficient today. Knowing I needed a restful day I had put some of our families favorite, bean soup, in the crock pot. I could NOT feed these sweet 20 year old boys bean soup!!! I asked them what they wanted for dessert (figured they needed something they really wanted), and they wanted peach pie and ice cream. Did I mention it was 3:00 and they needed to eat at 5:00 in order to make it to an appointment they had. I acted like we were prepared, no big deal, needless to say I was off and running!! Did you know Costco has peach pie?? It saved us!! We picked up some peach pie, ice cream, rolls, and fruit for salad. Then I decided they needed some meat (20 year old boys, remember!), luckily they had some tri-tip that looked just our size (yeah!) We ran around like crazy people but when the missionaries got here it looked like we had planned all day (thanks to all my kids, and the friends that were here, AND Kelly coming home early to help). It was a strange mix of food (I had to include the BEAN SOUP!) But they were so grateful (if only they knew!!) It ended up being a great dinner and the thing they liked the best, the bean soup, who knew!!! I wont mention that both of my boys got sent to bed early for showing off the whole time - some inappropriate jokes and a little "pants-ing" issue.
Moral of the story....I should have just finished my nap and fed them the bean soup!

Never say, "it cant get worse"!

I am hoping this is the lesson I am supposed to learn. That even when things seem really bad, they could quickly become even worse.
Our family has really struggled lately. Mostly surrounding Kellen's health. It has at many times felt like it was as bad as it could get (I have explained it many times as the bottom of a deep, dark pit we cannot seem to be able to climb out of). It has been exhausting!! I have said out loud many times that it really could not get any worse, I was wrong. I am blogging only because I am not sure it is believable, it's almost embarrassing!
Last Thursday (a week and a half ago) I woke up in the middle of the night with pain in my stomach. Not just tummy pain but intense pain! Having had an ulcer in the past I figured this was what it was, just worse then I have had before. I usually get a little bit of warning, not this time. I woke up Thursday, called the doc and he had me immediately come into the office. I got there and could not even get water down at that point. He tried to admit me but we both agreed that if I came into the office the next few days until he could scope it I could stay at home, so I did. I painfully got through the week with little sips of water and that is about all. Wednesday he scoped it and confirmed I have a ulcer, (a large crater eating through the lining of my stomach), that is due to lack of blood flow to that area. There is nothing he could do until he is able to consult a surgeon. So I came home, still in a lot of pain. Later in the day my left side started to hurt. Not just a little pain but the double over, I think I might actually die pain. I could deal with the pain but when I could no longer urinate I decided I might need to go to the doc. I gave them a call, they said to come now, so I did. Kelly had to drive me since I had been under anesthesia just a few hours before for the ulcer so we got there and I told him to stay in the car so he could work, I went in. I walked in got a few drops of urine out and they told me I could walk or take an ambulance but they were admitting me to the hospital. I was not happy...to make a long story short I told them no, they told me to call someone to be with me, I called Kelly to come in from the car. After going back and forth they offered 3 choices. All of them we ending up with me in the hospital. So I had no choice, and went. They decided I had a kidney stone and a kidney - bladder infection. They also decided I had some kind of blockage that was not allowing me to urinate.
Now, did I mention that we left Camden home with Mekenzie? He had a fever of 103, he was throwing up, and he would not move from the couch??? He was one sick boy....
We got to the hospital, they ordered tests (I sent Kelly home to be with Camden for the night), they pushed a ton of fluids into me (this was my favorite part since I could not urinate I imagined that at some point my bladder might actually explode!) and got me started on a million drugs. After a long night, no sleep, lots of tests, being so sick from the side effects of the drugs they were giving me, it was all confirmed. Kidney infection, stone, and a cyst on my left ovary. After 24 hours I passed the stone (can you say....ouch!) and even though I was still very miserable I could urinate and they released me (against their better judgment), into the care of my OBGYN - so I got to come home (Yeah!!). My day started with a ulcer, I had no idea it would end with me being sent to the hospital overnight.
We got home and Camden seemed to be a little worse. Still a high fever, throwing up, and now complaining of excruciating pain on his right side. I could only think of when Kellen did the same thing it was his appendix. I had Kelly take him to urgent care. 4 hours later they decided he had pneumonia and sent him home with 2 antibiotic shots and two prescriptions.
So we are both home, little bit miserable, but recovering! It has been a very long week, one I would not like to relive very soon. We are hoping by Monday we both feel a little better and can do what we need to.
The moral of the story... Don't ever say it can't get worse. Someone might think that is a challenge to show you that actually it can! I am off to go to take some meds. 2 for my ulcer, 2 antibiotics, a pain pill, a pill to counteract the nausea from the pain pill, and something to help w/ kidney function. I think that is all!