Craziness and then some...

Brian finished his 4th semester of college on May 20th...with a 4.0 GPA again. Yay, Brian!! He didn't exactly have easy classes this semester either...2 Psychology classes, Anatomy, Medical Terminology and Nutrition. The night of the 20th we went to a dinner hosted by MESA (a group he belongs to at COS) down in Mt. Shasta. Friday morning he got up early to go to work in Davis...my back had been bothering me for several days off and on and was really sore Friday morning - in the usual spot mid-to lower right side. He massaged it a bit before he left. I eventually got up, had breakfast and took some Motrin. Made it through Friday and Saturday - a little painful, but I thought I was keeping on top of it. Brian got home pretty late Saturday night. About 1 am Sunday morning my back muscles & stomach muscles were fighting and I was pretty sick - in and out of the bathroom. This has happened before and I thought it was the same thing and would pass. At 4am, Brian went out to the car and brought in his massage table and worked on me - hoping this would help. A little relief, but not much. Finally later that morning, I felt up to some Gatorade and crackers. Didn't last long. I went through the same cycle several times Sunday and Sunday night. Monday morning I felt better and I thought, okay, this is over. Brian headed to Fort Jones to do yard work at my grandma's and mom went to work. Joshua was at school. By 10 am it had started again...but worse. I couldn't get Brian to answer his phone - hard to hear it over lawn equipment. I finally called Mom at the store and asked if there was anyway she could come home because I couldn't lift Grace out of the playpen. By the time she got home, I'd decided that I need to go to the ER and she could take me to Ft. Jones and meet Brian. Brian finally answered the phone when we were halfway there, so he was ready to leave when we got there. Mom took Nathaniel back to work with her until Grandma could come up and get him. Brian, Grace and I headed to Yreka and the ER...where they determined it was my gall bladder.

As they were doing an ultrasound to look at my gall bladder they were concerned because 1) they couldn't find my left kidney and 2) my aorta looked too wide. So I got a CT Scan...where they found 1) my left kidney was there, it is just small and appears to not function and 2) my aorta isn't exactly widened...there's an anuerysm there...yep, great. But they say getting the gall bladder out is what needs to be taken care of first. The next evening my gall bladder gets removed. However, there werea couple of stones in the duct they couldn't get to so I hadto go up to Medford for another procedure. So, Wednesday morning I got to ride in an ambulance up to Medford. That afternoon they did the endoscopic procedure and found that the stones had already passed, but I needed to stay the night. Thursday evening I went home. So after 4 days in 2 different hospitals we came home. I'd been pumping those 4 days because I couldn't nurse Grace after the contrast used for the CT Scan. And she'd been home with Grandpa and Grandma anyway. And refusing to drink anything white out of bottle...she would drink watered down apple juice - which was pretty good considering she'd never had a bottle until I was in the ER.

The next week we found out that I have a dissected aortic anuerysm and I got a referral to a vascular specialist in Redding (we go next week...the waiting is not fun) and told that our planned family vacation to Arizona wasn't something I should do. I'm to keep my blood pressure down (it'd been high for the past month, my meds not making a lot of difference...so my OB/GYN doubled my meds and it's been a lot better the past 2 weeks) and avoid stress and not do anything too strenuous.

The gall bladder thing wasn't that comfortable (and I've had episodes like this for almost 2 years and always thought it was my back...maybe it wasn't all this time!), but I am so incredibly grateful for it because otherwise this other condition might never have been caught until it could've possibly been too late. What a blessing in disguise. So now we wait until the 24th when we find out from the vascular doctor what our next step is - most likely some form of surgery. Brian decided to drop his 2 online classes that he was going to take over the summer (History and an Abnormal Psych class) since we're not sure when things will be happening. A little less stress for him.

Anyway, on to other things! Grace is 8 1/2 months old now. She's pulling herself up on stuff and starting to scoot along furniture while holding on. She's finally gotten up on her knees for crawling and is REALLY fast now. She loves playing with her brothers. The other day she was in a ruffly girly dress down playing with the firetruck and Star Wars guys.

Joshua finished 2nd grade last week. He had the highest number of points in the Accelerated Reading program in the 2nd grade...164 or something like that. He finished the 2nd Harry Potter book right before school ended. He also finished Little League and is looking forward to playing again next year. This summer he's working on memorizing all of his basic math facts better (he likes math as much as I do) and working on the times tables.

Nathaniel is glad Joshua is home all the time now. He's looking forward to swimming lessons next month (as is Joshua) and is so glad the weather has finally warmed up so he can play outside all the time.

Here are some pictures:

Grace, 8 months old, May 21st

Big girl standing up - early June