Kayleigh has started an obsession with balls, she loves them! Last night after dinner she started kicking this one around the room I thought it was cute! Her walking skills are getting better by the day, yay!
This stresses me out since she gets so messy, but I know she needs to learn somehow. She really enjoyed our dinner last night, thanks to my visiting teacher.
On Monday night Michael and Kayleigh decided to take the plunge! They had fun and I had fun watching them. One of these days I'll get in. :-) 
Today Michael headed back to work and I headed to my mom's. I'm feeling better each day. My back seems to hurt a lot, probably because I walk hunched over because it hurts my incisions to stand up straight. I'm hoping that will go away soon. It's so hard not being able to lift Kayleigh! This morning as soon as she woke up I called my mom and my dad came up to get her out of bed. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I am starting to see the end of the tunnel. Jill-I have no clue how you've done it for 12 weeks!!
We had dinner brought in tonight by someone in our ward-love that! Thanks to everyone who is helping me get through the recovery.
Tonight Michael went to my parent's house to watch my brother while they went to a play. (The tickets to the play were our birthday present to my mom.) Since Kayleigh does better when she goes to bed on time Michael quickly ran her home around nine with Nathan in tow, much to his dismay. Once Kayleigh was in her p.j.s and had drunk her bottle he left. Usually once she's in her bed she falls asleep and is fine. So...
Michael left to go back to my mom's house where Nathan would be happier. About 10 minutes after they left Kayleigh started to cry. I went in her bedroom and tried to comfort her-offered her more bottle, her binki, read 3 books to her... She just wanted to get out. She pulled herself up to me and kept saying "Up! Up!" I wanted to help her but there was no way I was going to pick her up. I felt so helpless!
How was my 16 month old supposed to understand I'd just had surgery and couldn't lift her?? It was awful! After calling Michael and deciding I'd just have to leave the room and let her cry I told her Jesus and his angels would be with her and I'd just be in the other room. She calmed down and as I walked out she didn't even cry! That might sound cheesy but it's what came to mind. I was so glad because I didn't know what else to do! I can't wait till next Thursday when I can lift her again!
Well, I survived. All of yesterday took a lot longer than I had planned. My surgery finally started around 10:30, done at 11:30 and finally woke up and got to see Michael by 12:30. Once in recovery they took my vitals and started me on liquids. They wanted me to be able to go to the bathroom before I left and unfortunately it took me until about 4 in the afternoon before I could do that. I swear the anesthesia just slows everything down in your body. I felt like I needed to go but couldn't.
Once we were discharged we drove home and got stuck in traffic, of course! We stopped in Bountiful at IHC to fill my prescription and then went to my mom's house to pick Kayleigh up. She was so tired! She wouldn't take a nap all day but my mom said she was actually really happy and did well. We got home around 7 and my visiting teaching companion brought us dinner. It was so nice! She brought soup, rolls, salad, and pumpkin bread. It was really good and felt nice to eat some food.
We got (I should say Michael got) Kayleigh to bed and we watched Alvin and the Chipmunks before we headed to bed. I slept pretty good actually. Today I feel a lot like yesterday still, in pain. My stomach feels so tight! It reminds me all too well of my c-section pain and not being able to stand up/sit down/lay down very easily. I'm hoping by tomorrow I'll feel a little better. I get to take the bandages off tomorrow and shower so that will feel good.
Thanks to everyone who has helped us: my mom, Michael's grandparents, Lezli (brought dinner) and especially Michael who is taking good care of me!
Surgery scheduled for 9:50 a.m. I'll get there around 8 to get checked in and then it's all downhill from there. Wish me luck! I'm sure it will be just fine.
Michael and I thought it would be fun to try a little garden this year. After removing all the weeds from our garden we planted some corn, tomatoes and green peppers. We hope that at least something turns out. It was fun to do it though and oh well if nothing works, there's always my parents HUGE garden. They love to share and always have plenty.
Kayleigh sat and played with her toys while we planted. She did really good considering she'd only had one nap today. She smiled pretty good for Daddy when he took her picture.
We'll have to see come August how our things do. It would be really neat to actually eat something we grew. Happy gardening!
Last night we thought it would be fun to go and find some ducks to give our old bread to. Michael wanted to drive up Farmington Canyon and see how fast the water was coming down so we headed up there. The water was very muddy but coming down fast. As we stood on the bridge over the falls Kayleigh got a little nervous. I think because it was so loud and she's never seen anything like that before.
Once we got down to the pond and Kayleigh saw the ducks/swans/geese (I'm not sure what they were) she loved it! She got right up to the fence and was squealing. of course we forgot our camera, I was so mad. Michael fed all of them our bread. Kayleigh even would take pieces and drop it in the water. She had a fun time I think. Michael was able to give one of them a big piece pretty much out of his hand. They aren't really scarred of humans with food I guess. It was a great Sunday evening trip for us, we'll have to do it again sometime.
On Saturday Michael, Kayleigh and I all headed down to the Gateway. At Christmas we had gotten a gift card to Z Tejas and we thought we could use that and do a little shopping. The weather was just perfect! It was a little windy but really sunny and warm. There were tons of kids playing in the water fountains which looked fun. We had an enjoyable time getting some new clothes for summer and eating out.
Kayleigh did amazingly well in her stroller. She ate I think 3 packs of fruit snacks and lots of fishies but she made it. Michael was a huge help too because he would push her around outside while I shopped. I think she enjoyed being outdoors and not just at our house. In the end she even fell asleep for about 1/2 hour in the stroller before we headed home.
That night we watched 27 Dresses. We both thought it was really cute! It kind of reminded me of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days because both movies write stories for the paper and the girls don't know until they are published.
Oh my word! I just figured out, after being on the phone all morning, how much this stinkin surgery is going to cost us. It is outpatient which means our insurance will cover it at 90% leaving us with 10%. When I heard this I thought, oh good, it shouldn't be too bad. Well, here's the breakdown of the cost before insurance:
Physician- $1,749
Anesthesiologist- $375 per hour (thankfully I'm only scheduled to take one hour)
Facility- $6,140
So you add that all up and $8,264 is the total. This means I'd be paying about $826 when it's all over. This is insane! I'll only be there for about 3 hours tops! What's just crazy is that when we payed for Kayleigh (c-section) it was just over a thousand (we pay 10% for maternity too). So this is like giving birth to a gallbladder. Auugh! I'd much rather have another baby.
All I can say is thank goodness for insurance!
It's official, I'll be getting my gallbladder out on May 22nd. That's next Thursday. I won't know the time until the day before when I call and they tell me. We met with the surgeon today and he seems really nice. His name is Dr. Glasgow at the University of Utah. The doctor that Michael works for (Lor Randall) referred us to him and said that's who he'd have his wife go to.
The surgery will be done laparoscopically (thru the belly button) and 4 little incisions just under my rib cage. It will take about 45 minutes with 1-2 hours spent in the recovery room. Once I awaken from the anesthesia and get the okay I can go home that day. They say 1-2 week recovery time but it just depends on the person. I think since I healed pretty fast with my c-section I should be fine with this.
We talked to Dr. Glasgow about not having surgery and he said that once you have more than one gallbladder attack (what I had last Thursday that put me in the ER) the chance of having another is 100%. There is medication you can take to get rid of the gall stones but it takes about 8 months to work and there is an 80% chance they will come back. The doctor said in 2008 the way to get rid of gall stones is to remove the gallbladder. He said there are no side effects of having no gallbladder. I'll be able to eat and do everything the same. He said it might take about 2 weeks for my bowels to figure out that I don't have a gallbladder and that could cause some diarrhea. I guess we'll just have to see on that. But after hearing all those stats it seems pretty obvious, get it out!
Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers in my behalf, I really appreciate them. Thanks to Michael who I've kept awake every night as I twist and turn in pain. He is going to take next Thursday and Friday off so that should work out nicely. And last, thanks to Lortab-it's my best friend right now.
Okay everyone, I have been spelling gal stone wrong-it's gall stone with 2 l's. So sorry! And gallbladder is one word. Glad I clarified that.
The office called back and said the doctor thinks I should meet with a surgeon. They gave me a name of someone in Bountiful but I'll have to check with my insurance and see who and where is the best place to have do it and be done. Michael knows some surgeons at Huntsman that could probably do it too, so we'll see. It looks like surgery is in the works for me though, hmm... The only surgeries I've had are a c-section and wisdom teeth out. I wonder how this one will be.
So it has been done, the 4th ultrasound of this whole deal. And the results, it's a gal stone. Wish they could have just figured that out last week when I was there. Anyhow, it's nice to know what's causing the pain. I've contacted my primary care doctor to tell her what's up and see where she wants to go from here. She will hopefully call me back today.
I'm not sure if I need my gal bladder out or what. I'd keep it if the stone will pass and the pain goes away but want it out if it won't. Each night I get woken up with pain and even in the day I can feel it, especially if I hold Kayleigh on that side. It's not anywhere near Thursday morning's pain, thank heavens, but not something that I want forever. So hopefully I'll know more later today and can decide what to do.
I just wanted to say Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there. Ever since I became a mom last year I've gained a whole new appreciation for what mothers do. I think the biggest thing is sacrificing. Sacrificing time, energy, talents, sleep, etc. I love Kayleigh so much and am grateful to be her mother.
Michael surprised me with some new perfume, Clinique Happy Heart-love that smell! With that he got a free gift which is a very cute pink and white flowered bag. He also got me a new scripture case from Deseret Book. I love it all-he is good at picking things out for me. He said that Kayleigh got it for me and she even signed her name on the card-more of a scribble, but I liked it. Thanks, hun!
These are so my family knows that I do let Kayleigh get messy and have some fun. She really loved that spaghetti!
When Kayleigh is hungry or wants a treat she walks/crawls over to the pantry and starts squaking, it's so funny!
First off, this post is not about the t.v. show. On May 8th, early in the morning, Michael took me to the emergency room at the U of U hospital. I had intense pain in my right abdomen, right under my ribs. I really didn't want to go to the ER but insta care was closed and it hurt SO BAD! I didn't know what to do! After a little while my fingers and legs started to tingle as if asleep-I think I was going into shock a little. My fingers got really stiff.
My mom came to the rescue and slept at our house in case Kayleigh woke up and we left for the hospital in the middle of a HUGE rain storm! We went under the speed limit most of the way. I think it was the longest ride of my life, even longer than the hopital ride to have Kayleigh.
Once getting there they got me checked in and into one of those wonderful hospital gowns. They put a warm blanket on me, yum!! Then a nurse came in and asked me a lot of questions about where it hurt, if I was pregnant (I'm not), what I ate for dinner, etc. Then he put an I.V. in to give me Morphine (what a fabulous drug) and some nausea medication. He also needed to take lots of blood to run some tests. As he put the I.V. in (I didn't watch) my blood went everywhere. I could feel it running off of my arm on the floor and on the sheet and all over my arm. Michael wasn't really impressed with that. I survived though.
After waiting about an hour they got the results of the tests back which were all pretty normal except that I had low potassium. (While we waited we tried to watch t.v., Jon and Kate Plus 8 was on but the sound on our t.v. didn't work.) They gave me 2 huge horse pills of potassium which I took and now have an all new appreciation for those that take them everyday of their life! The resident came in and did a physical exam of my abdomen and after having it hurt when she pushed on my gal bladder she said we needed to do an ultrasound.
She wheeled that machine in and the attending doc did an ultra sound to which she discovered a gal stone, or so we thought. She said that I would need to get my gal bladder removed and surgery would want a more official looking ultra sound so I would need to go down to radiology and have a better one done. So into a wheelchair I went (don't worry, I was still getting lots of Morpine during all of this) down to radiology. Here another resident did an ultrasound to which he said there was no gal stone. What?? Very frustrating! I liked knowing what was wrong and why I had all the pain. So back into the wheelchair and up to my bed, what a pain. The attending doc, first one to do the ultrasound, came back in and didn't believe what the resident said so she wanted to do another one with him and be there when he did it. You know what that meant, into the wheel chair again. Down to radiology...
Onto my 3rd ultrasound of the night (I think I only had 3 total when I was pregnant) where the attending and resident bet over anything on the menu at Starbucks if it was a gal stone or not. Can you believe that? Even though I was the patient, it was kind of funny. The attending ER doc decided that the resident's attending needed to look over the findings and decide. Problem, he wouldn't be there till in the morning so she would have to call us back.
I was soon sent home with Lortab and Zofran to wait for a phone call. On Thursday night we got that phone call. She said that they still can't come to a conclusion on what it is. There is definately something there, a mass of some sort. They just can't tell if it's in my gal bladder or just outside of it. Its meauserments are .8cm by 1.2 cm. They don't think it's just a piece of fat either because fat doesn't cast a shadow like this was doing.
Conclusion, I will be going back in on Monday for another ultrasound in hopes that having an ultrasound technician look at it they might be able to decide what it is. If they can't, I don't really know what the next step is. Thankfully, since Thursday morning around 6 A.M. when we got home from the hopital my abdomen has felt great and no pain. I am just worried it will come back. In the meantime we'll just hope for the best.
And now, thank you for reading that long post and I'll post more on Monday as we find out anything new.
As of today at 11:29 a.m. Kayleigh has a new cousin! Her name is Miriam and she was 7lb. 4oz. and 19 1/2 inches long. Per her dad she looks like her older sister, Anna. I am so excited for my brother and sister-in-law to be adding this new one to their family. The delivery went great! Anna was a c-section but this was vaginal and Katerina is tough, no epidural! They will go home tomorrow and my mom flies out next week to help. I'm sad we aren't close so I could go to the hospital today and visit, oh well. Congratulations!
I've been dying to post some pictures on here but with our new computer Michael hasn't had a chance yet to upload our new Kodak program for our camera. Hence, no new pictures. So today I thought I'd put some on of last year.
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