Kidney Stones

To say that this has been a rough week would be an understatement… I guess to get the full overview I will go back one week and start with on the 1st.  I’d gone to church, had a busy day with Primary stuff and then got the kids down for naps afterwards.  We’d been invited over to the Olsen’s for a barbeque at 4:00 with a bunch of other families and we were really looking forward to it.  At about 2:00 that afternoon I started feeling ‘off’ and knew that another kidney stone attack was coming.  I was not happy!  The pain wasn’t too bad at that point, just achy, so I thought I would see how it went at the barbeque.  I only lasted about half an hour before I had to leave.  Lennard stayed with the kids, but I couldn’t sit any longer as the pain was getting worse.  I went home, took some pain pills and went to sleep.  I was able to sleep for a few hours and thought that I’d be okay.  I had an Primary orientation with the Stake that evening and so I got dressed and headed up to the church at 7:00.  I was still in some pain, but it was manageable at that point.  I got to the meeting and within a half hour I was in a lot of pain.  At one point I was on my knees hunched over the chair trying to watch the training video.  (Ridiculous!)  The meeting finally ended and I headed home to get more meds.  I managed to sleep the night and figured I’d pass the stone over night.  No such luck. 

I managed to keep the pain somewhat under control on Monday and still thought I would be able to pass it at home, but at about 2:00 Tuesday morning I couldn’t stand it any longer and headed down to the ER.  Of course, as soon as I get there, the pain subsided some and I really thought it had finally passed.  They gave me a shot of pain med and sent me home.  Again, managed to make it through another day without crazy amounts of pain, but not feeling great. 

Thursday morning, I was still hurting and so I made an appointment to go see my family doctor.  He decided I needed to go in for a CT scan in Lethbridge, but they couldn’t get me in until the next day.  It was Ben’s birthday that day, so I tried to put on a brave face and have his birthday party.  Thankfully, he won’t remember that I didn’t personally make him a cake and that Dairy Queen ice cream cake was a good substitute! 

Mom and Dad drove me in to Lethbridge Friday morning for my CT scan and I was completely pain free that morning.  I was sure that I’d passed the stone, but figured I would get the scan done anyways.  Well… as I was waiting for the scan, the pain started in earnest again.  Of course I hadn’t brought any kind of medication with me, so I was in agony.  They got me through the scan quickly and then I decided I’d better try to go to the ER.  I got checked in and then mom asked if I could get anything for the pain.  Of course they said no… I had to wait to see a doctor.  When asked how long it would be, they informed us that it would be a minimum two hour wait!  Yikes!  There was no way I could handle sitting there for two hours in pain, so we decided to head home and go straight to the Cardston ER.  Thankfully, they got me in right away, but it took a while for them to finally get an IV in and get pain meds going.  They pumped me full of gravol first as morphine makes me sick, but before they got any pain meds in my pain went through the roof.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been in so much pain in my entire life.  EVER!  Lennard had gone home to be with the kids, but after calling for help over and over and no one coming, I finally called him and asked him to come back.  I just needed him with me.  Finally, they got some meds that took the edge off but didn’t take the pain away completely.  At that point, something was better than nothing.  The doctor on call sat down with me and said that I needed to consider having the stone removed surgically.  I wasn’t too excited about that option, but I couldn’t take any more pain. 

He made the call and within the hour, we were told to drive back in to Lethbridge and meet the urologist at the ER.  My mom and dad came in to stay with the kids and then we were on our way.  We had to wait for a half hour in the ER, but then I was seen by the doctor who then informed me that they probably couldn’t get me in to surgery that night!  Grrr!  Thankfully, they hooked up my IV and gave me some amazing drugs that pretty much knocked me out.  I was slurring my words and really tired.  I finally send Lennard home and then waited for them to get me transferred upstairs.  It was after 9:00 when I made it upstairs and then, just as I was almost asleep, the nurse came in to finish admitting me.  Then it felt like every half hour, someone was in the room either for me or my roommate.  I definitely didn’t get any sleep.  I just about bit off the night nurse’s head when he came in at 2:00am and flipped on the light.  He asked me how I was feeling and I growled, “I’m tired!”. 

Anyways, at about 10:00 Saturday morning I was taken in to surgery.  By that point I hadn’t had much to eat in the past 5-6 days and absolutely nothing for the last day and a half!  When I got out of surgery, I was starving!  I couldn’t get enough food in to me.  I was still extremely tired and sore, but at least I wasn’t in as much pain as I was before.  We got home just in time for dinner that mom had ready for us.  I don’t know what we would have done without their help.  I truly pray that I will never have to go through a week like this again… ever!  I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone.

Ben is THREE

Our baby boy is three years old!  I had big plans on how I wanted to celebrate, but none of the plans materialized.  I was fighting kidney stones and so Dairy Queen provided the cake, mom went downtown with Emma and got balloons and party hats and that was that!  Thankfully, we’d already bought his birthday gifts!  We had dinner with Grandpa & Grandma Murray and Grandpa Nichols.

He was very excited to be able to say he is now three years old… and from the expressions on his face in the pictures, you can tell that he loved his presents!  We can’t imagine our lives without our Benny.  Love you, buddy!

  

  

  

Rock On!

Lennard took the day off work so we could put more rock up.  We got so much done and it’s looking so good!  I love it!

Another Year and Fun Times Together

Well, we’ve made it another year!  It was our 14th wedding anniversary yesterday.  We didn’t do anything crazy, but (thanks to my mom and dad) we had a wonderful evening all to ourselves.  They even took the kids to sleep at their house, so we got a whole night’s sleep without interruption too! 

This morning when I went to get the kids, I decided to keep driving and go to Waterton with them.  We had such a fun time!  We went for a ‘hike’ and walked around Linnet Lake, had a ‘pic-nic’ of cheese strings, grapes and crackers and threw rocks in the lake.  Emma even went for a dip in the lake!  We couldn’t have had a more beautiful morning to just play and have fun together.  Definitely the best way to spend a morning!

     

Tonight we got to babysit my nephew, Jeffrey, while his parents went to the temple.  To say that our kids were excited to have a baby in the house would be an understatement.  They were such good helpers!

Family Pictures

I heard of a gal on Facebook that was going to be taking family photos for a very good price… so I booked her to do ours!  I’m so glad that I did too.  She was SO good with the kids.  I was quite amazed at how well they did most of the evening.  By the end they wouldn’t cooperate, but by then we’d been taking pictures for almost two hours!  Unfortunately, Emma wouldn’t smile in a bunch of the pictures, but we got a few.  She also doesn’t look AT the camera very often, so it was tricky.

Note:  Even though we didn’t get the pictures until a few weeks after this, I decided to just post them here. Enjoy!

          

Big Changes

For the past three years (almost), I have been the Stake Bulletin Rep.  Translation:  compile all the e-mails from around the area that need to go in bulletins and send out an e-mail to all the ward reps once a week. When I had two tiny babies this was the ideal calling, but lately I've felt a little under-used.  I loved not having to worry about finding subs, but it's definitely been a very solitary calling.

Having said all that, when I got called to meet with the bishop two weeks ago, I was completely shocked to hear that they were going to be calling me as the new Primary President!  Yikes!  Talk about a change.

I was handed a photocopied section on Primary from the handbook, a ward list and the assignment to pick counselors and a secretary.  The next few days were spent pouring over the list, narrowing down names and praying that I would find the right people to support me in this calling.  To make matters even more interesting, the bishopric was also changing the Relief Society and Young Women presidencies at the same time!  Amazingly with all the names submitted, there was only one name that two organizations wanted... and I got her!

Church today was a bit surreal.  As Sunday School ended and we started to head in to Sacrament meeting, I felt like I was in a dream.  Pretty soon the Bishop stood up and started reading off names of all the people that were being released from callings... there were 28!  Then came time for all the new callings.  The Bishop got a bit choked up as he talked about how change is good and how these new presidencies will help the ward grow.  The new Relief Society presidency (4) was then announced and then Primary (4) and then Young Women's (11).  It was an interesting feeling standing there as all the names were being called.  It's been a long time since I've been in a presidency (since we lived in Fredericton!).

I was a little shocked at the number of women called into Young Women as it makes finding new Primary teachers a bit more challenging, but at the same time, I'm excited to see all the changes that are taking place and curious to see how it's all going to work in the future.  This coming weekend will be a bit 'interesting' as not only do we need to find teachers for nursery and Sunbeams, but it's a long weekend, so I'm sure there will be other teachers gone too!

I met with the past president tonight and got a brief overview of all the various programs that I am now responsible for overseeing.  It's a little overwhelming how large Primary really is!  Not only to you have the Sunday classes to oversee, there is Sharing Time, Set up, Conducting, Activity Day girls, Cubs, 11-yr old Scouts, Baptisms, Priesthood Preview, Ward Counsel meetings, presidency meetings, Stake Training, Primary Presentation etc.  I'm SO glad that I have good counselors to help with all this!

We meet as a presidency for the first time tomorrow afternoon, so I'm really hoping that we can come up with a game plan for at least this coming Sunday.  We're going to have to get going on the Primary Presentation by the week after that as it is already scheduled for the 22nd of September!  It's going to be busy!  A little different than sending out an e-mail once a week (which I'm still doing for now!).

Playing in the Creek

Just before lunch today I got a text message from my friend, Shannon, asking if we wanted to go play in the creek on their land this afternoon. At first I thought, no way… it’s naptime!  But then I decided that it wouldn’t kill the kids to skip their naps, and I was definitely ready to have some adult conversation!  We had lunch, loaded up, did a few errands and then it was time to head out.  The kids were SO excited!  Unfortunately, as it really was naptime, Ben fell asleep in the van before we got there and ended up sleeping the almost the entire time.  Guess he was tired!

Another friend, Mishel, came with her kids too, so there were lots of kids to play with!  Emma discovered that walking on creek rocks isn’t as easy as the sandy beach.  It was nice that there were a bunch of little girls for her to play with.  I ended up in the creek quite a bit and since it was such a nice day it felt good.

We were there until about 3:30 and then headed home to see if we could help Lennard with the house.  Of course, Emma fell asleep on the way home, so we opened all the windows on the van and just let her sleep while Lennard worked on finishing up the siding that needed fixed above the front entry.