Leah and Audrey happenings

Can I just start by telling you that packing around 40 lbs. worth of babies isn't as easy as you may imagine it. Another funny story is that my husband asked me the other day how I was going to grocery shop once the babies were in bigger car seats because I wouldn't be able to just put them in the grocery cart anymore. Ummm hello, the babies have been in bigger car seats now for almost two months. I take four kids to the store whenever I go. I put the babies in their stroller while Alyssa or I push the grocery cart. When I told him this, he seemed puzzled as to how that worked. Trust me, it just works. To me, going from 2-4 kids has been a lot easier than going from 1-2 kids. I find that I have a lot of shortcuts that I would die without, and things don't always work out as planned but I am finally learning that I have to let some things go. There is no other way that I would be able to function.

Leah and Audrey are such good babies, they are babbling non-stop, Leah is about a month behind Audrey on motor skills where Leah is about a month ahead of Audrey on developmental skills. Leah is now crawling, sitting-up, and can almost pull herself up to standing while holding on to things. Audrey doesn't need to know how to do any of these things because she is just capable of getting into EVERYTHING just by rolling around. Leah is still the more aggressive one and she loves tormenting Audrey by pulling her hair. At first we thought that she was just doing it without realizing what she was doing but boy were we wrong. She does it intentionally, and then will just smile when we tell her to stop. Both girls have two teeth on the bottom, and they look so cute with them. I can't believe that they are almost 9 months old now, they are seriously growing way too fast. Oh how I love my four girls!

Alyssa happenings

This little girl who is not so little anymore starts school in only 6 more days. Oh, how I am going to miss her while she is gone at school. She has been such a good helper to me and takes such great care of her sisters. The summer went by way too fast. I really enjoy having all of my kids home for the summer, call me weird but I love it. I get a little emotional when they go back to school.

Alyssa will be entering the second grade, and she says that she is not excited to go back to school. I know that she will do great once she actually gets settled in.

The majority of Alyssa's summer break was spent swimming. A couple of times I wondered if she was going to start growing some fins, talk about a fish.

Another thing we are going to miss is sleeping in. Oh, how I don't want to start waking up at 5:45 a.m. again but it's time I guess.

What a great summer that it has been, now let real life begin...

Kelsie happenings

I am worried sick about this little girl. She just hasn't been herself lately. It started about a week or so ago. I noticed that she seemed really tired. Too tired to play, too tired to eat, I am talking completely lethargic. At church last Sunday, she was almost asleep on my lap during sacrament meeting which never is the case. She even fell asleep the other day while playing the wii. The only other symptom I noticed with her was that she looked really pale, but still I wasn't really concerned. I just figured that maybe she was just trying to fight off a cold or something. Yesterday morning I had more of a concern when I kept going in to check on her and she still was not awake. She is an early riser and rarely sleeps past about 7:30 a.m during the summer. After checking on her three times, she seemed as though she did not want to wake up. She finally woke up at 9:00 a.m. I called over to our pediatricians office and spoke with the phone nurse who advised me that I needed to bring Kelsie in right away. I gathered up the girls and off we headed to see the doctor. The doctor came in to look at Kelsie, checked her over, and just had a very concerning look on her face. She informed me that Kelsie's spleen was very enlarged, she had white patchy spots on her tonsils, and she was also concerned that Kelsie had lost 6 pounds since last being seen 6 months prior. All of the symptoms that Kelsie presented with assured the doctor that Kelsie had Mononucleosis, which is the long word for mono. I was shocked, and had no idea that children could even get mono. Apparently they can. Mono does cause your spleen to be enlarged, it also causes you to be extremely lethargic, and the white patches on your throat are also a symptom, however weight loss is not usually a symptom which still is a worry. The doctor informed me that other serious illnesses could also be a factor in the reason Kelsie's spleen is enlarged. They did do some lab work on Kelsie to see about things like leukemia which is never what you want to hear as a Mother, especially when it hits so close to home. My uncle was diagnosed with Leukemia as a child, he was only 3 1/2 years old when he passed away. The good news though is that Kelsie's complete blood count looked really good which makes the doctor think at this point we can just go ahead and assume that she has mono and nothing more serious. We will get the rest of our lab work back hopefully by tomorrow. It is still a worry, but I am just trying not to get all worked up. I am going to wait for the results from her lab work, and we will go from there. In the meantime, I am hoping to avoid getting mono. That's the last thing that I need right now.

My Mom flew home two nights ago, and things just haven't been the same around here. She was here for for a little over half of the month, and it was so great having her. She did the majority of the cleaning, cooking, shopping, you name it and she did it. She also brought my niece Gabby with her, and the girls all had so much fun playing together. Alyssa cried all the way home from the airport after we had to drop off my Mom and Gabby. It's so hard being away from family especially for kids.

My Mom already has her next flight booked for November and will be here for Audrey and Leah's first birthday. How fun will that be? I can't wait!

The next time she comes hopefully will be a little more exciting. I felt like we weren't able to do a whole lot just with the surgery and all, but we still managed to do some fun things together.

We love you Mom, and miss you already. Captain D's, Ben & Jerry's, and the he-she are begging you to come back!

My heart is so full tonight as I am just thinking about all of the things that I would like to blog about. Where do I even begin? I guess that I will start by saying how grateful I feel to be living in Tennessee. You all know how I felt about moving to Tennessee. I pictured our family moving maybe a few states away from Utah, never in a million years did I imagine us moving clear across the country. When Kevin applied for residency programs, he considered my feelings greatly and wanted to move to only the places where I felt comfortable living. I felt great about the programs he had chosen all except for one residency program which was in Nashville, Tennessee. Now you have to realize how the residency program works. It's not like you just decide where you want to do your residency and then magically that's where you get to go. If only it were that easy. Here's how it works. As a student you submit your top picks for residency programs which are sent to a central computer. At the same time, residency programs throughout the country submit their own lists, ranking candidates based on grades, interviews and recommendations. This computer system then spits out the name of the residency program that you will be going to. Here's where it gets a little interesting. Since Kevin knew how much I didn't want to come to Tennessee, he lowered Vanderbilt on his list, meaning that there would be a much lower chance that we would move out here. Apparently, his ranking didn't mean much because we still ended up here. Coincidence? Maybe? If the ranking worked the way it should have, we would be doing our residency at a completely different program, it shouldn't have worked out that we matched at Vanderbilt. There's just no way around it.

I am getting used to living in the south, life seems to be moving along when BAM I am hit with some more big news. As if having twins, frozen pipes, and a house flood aren't enough to deal with all in a years time. My tumor is back, and in a year it has almost doubled in size. I head to Vanderbilt, consult with a Neurosurgeon who informs me that I am in the best hands possible. I think to myself, "sure, that's what they all say." After failing medication therapy, I decide that my only choice is to go through yet another brain surgery. Surgery is done, and I feel beyond amazing. How could this be? When I had the first surgery it took months for me to feel like I could do even the simplest task. I had to take pain pills for several weeks, and couldn't tell you who came to visit, or what went on. The pain that I felt afterwards was horrendous. Of course I expected that this time around, things wouldn't be any different but they were different. I am a survivor yet again, I made it through and all went well. To top it all off, I find out that at Vanderbilt this is the biggest pituitary clinic in the world. We are talking 80 of these exact surgeries happen per month. Patients fly in from all over the world for the chance to be operated at Vanderbilt. Let me ask you, " Do you think that this is a coincidence that we ended up here?" I think not.

I am not a believer that things happen merely just by chance. I believe that all things happen for a reason. There is no way that moving out here happened coincidentally. Even when we moved out here, my Mom would always tell me that maybe the reason why we were headed here was for my health. I strongly believe that my health is one of many reasons why we ended up here.

Many wonderful experiences have happened to me throughout this complicated medical journey, and I don't need to share with you every single detail but overall miracles were performed. There is no other explanation plain and simple.

I also received my hospital bill and can you believe that for one day in the hospital, my bill came to $37,000.00. This was only the bill for the inpatient hospital services, and this does not include any of the professional fees. Even with our insurance coverage we would still have to pay 10% of this bill, but like I mentioned before. Miracles keep happening over and over again. For this entire hospital stay, we will be paying NOTHING! Vanderbilt has been so good to us, and I can't express my thanks enough to such an incredible hospital who is so equipped to handle any situation at any given time. Again, I ask you. "Coincidence?" to which I reply, "not a chance"

Thank you again for your outpouring of love and support, I feel great, and know that I will continue to heal each day. With much love sent to all of you!

72 hours after surgery

So far I am still feeling great. I am actually feeling too great, and I have to keep reminding myself that I just had brain surgery and what I should be doing is relaxing and taking it EASY. Well, I haven't been too good at the whole relaxing part and I went shopping tonight with my Mom and sister. My sister April leaves tomorrow and I am so sad to see her go back to Utah. We have had so much fun together. It was nice to get out tonight for a little girls night out shopping. She bought me the cutest dress, how sweet is that? I should be buying her something. We have been spoiled like always, my Mom always does a great job of that. My Mom will be here for about 11 more days, and I am so excited that she gets to stay. I wish that April could stay here with her but I know that she needs to get back to work.

I'm back

Well I survived yet another brain surgery, let's hope it's the last. I think Kevin gave you a pretty good report, and that's that the surgeons as well as the entire medical staff that took care of me did a FANTASTIC job. I have to brag about the anesthesia department, my do those guys know how to do a great job. To come out of surgery without throwing up gallons of blood was a plus. I was sure than when I woke up I hadn't even had surgery yet. I don't have any kind of packing in my nose, and just with the normal eye, you can't even tell that I had surgery. I am telling you, miracles were performed.

The most painful part of the surgery was getting the screws in place. I did this the day before surgery, and got myself so worked up about getting them that when it came for the appointment, I was beyond nervous. I did fairly well until I saw part of my hair falling to the ground. They did have to cut some of my hair in order to place the screws. I know that I have plenty of hair but it was still hard seeing my locks coming off in clumps. I have a new appreciation for chemo patients and I can't imagine having to go through what they do. Surprisingly getting the screws in place didn't hurt as much as I imagined it would. They numbed up the areas well and then put the screws in. After the numbing agent wore off after a few hours was when the real pain set in. It also didn't help that I hit one of the screws on the car door, and so it started bleeding profusely. Kevin had to apply some pressure to stop the bleeding, and I though that I was going to go through the roof. It hurt so bad! Sleeping with the screws in also wasn't comfortable at all. They also had to put some round stickers all over my face. I really looked like an alien, it was quite entertaining to walk through the hospital and see people's reaction to me.

Surgery took about four hours, and all went well. The Neurosurgeon was happy with the size of the tumor that he was able to remove. My wish was granted and I was able to leave the hospital within 24 hours. I don't know what it is about being in a hospital that I hate so bad, but I am always determined to get out as fast as I can. I am taking it easy, and have been sleeping a lot. I hate taking pain pills but I am taking them anyway. I will be following up in six weeks with a radiation/oncologist for more lovely treatment. They have talked about doing the gamma knife but I am not exactly sure which route of radiation that we are going to try for sure. When the Neurosurgeon came to see me after surgery, he told me that I should be a poster child for this surgery because he said that I had a huge smile on my face after coming out of surgery. I thought that was so funny. I wonder what other crazy things I did during surgery. I know right before I went into surgery, I told him that he better take the * * * * screws out of my head. I got the screws out and now have staples to deal with instead.

Well, it's time to rest so I better go. We are truly blessed, and I can't help but think that one of the reasons that we were sent out to Tennessee was for me to receive such excellent medical care. Vanderbilt has one of the top pituitary clinics in the world. How amazing is that?

New Management

So while Trish's posts are on hiatus, I've been put in charge of updating the blog. This will make for much less entertaining posts, but bear with me. So important news first. Trish had her surgery yesterday, and she is doing great. They got out as much tumor as they could safely, and everything went pretty straight forward. She is feeling really well right now, no vomiting or pain. In fact, she's hoping to make it home today, although I don't know what the chances of that are. She will likely get out of the ICU today, so that will be nice. I'm at the hospital right now, so I can't put any pictures up, but she's looking great. Hopefully some of the lines and tubes should start coming out soon. Sorry about the late post, I spent yesterday helping out Trish, and getting her two (yes, two!) Ben and Jerry's milk shakes. Maybe I should spend some time in the hospital. Anyway, we really thank everybody for their thoughts and prayers, and I'll try to keep everyone updated. I'll pass any comments on to Trish.

Happy 10 year anniversary

My how time flies. This is one of many of our engagement photos. We haven't changed much have we? What, you didn't know Kevin had hair? Well, he did. Even though his hair is now turning gray and he doesn't have much left, he is still the love of my life. I do have to add one more thing about this photo, and that is how I would love to be this size again. If only I could still wear these jeans. My, what having four kids can do to a woman.

Yes, yesterday was our 10 year anniversary and we had a great night. We were supposed to go to the temple but Kevin got home kind of late so we didn't have time to go. We did end up going to dinner here, and I have to just say that I have never tasted such a delicious steak.

I had heard nothing but rave reviews about Ruth's Chris and since this is our diamond anniversary, I thought that we could splurge a little. (okay maybe a lot) but it was so worth every penny.

Marrying Kevin has been the greatest decision that I have ever made. I often joke that I got the better end of the deal. We have grown a lot in the 10 years that we have been married, Love is definitely what we are going through.. Together.

Anniversary musings

10-years of marriage

9-cars that we have owned

8-years of schooling

7-trips I hope to go on someday when we are done paying off our student loans

6-people in our lovely family

5-places of residence

4-GIRLS

3-years of residency left to go

2-people in love

1-year of residency COMPLETED and MANY more to go!

tests, tests, and more useless tests

I am finally home after a long and exhausting day at Vanderbilt. I left my house a little after 12:00 this afternoon and did not arrive back until 5:45 this evening. I am not the most patient person especially when it has to do with sitting in waiting rooms with doctors who never seem to ever be on schedule. I was going to take the girls with me and am so glad that I didn't, but I feel sorry for the two babysitters who had to watch my girls for almost 6 hours today.

So my first appointment was all about what to expect during and after surgery. Basically don't eat or drink after midnight, no gum, no mints, no make-up, no jewelry. blah, blah, blah. In one ear and out the other. Seeing how this appointment was supposed to end within an hour but took almost an hour and a half, not exactly a good sign. Onto my next appointment which was lab work. Can't have surgery without getting a pregnancy test. When the phlebotomist asked me if I was pregnant, my answer was simple. " You know last year was the year of surprises so I guess anything is possible, but I am pretty sure that I am not." After several vials of blood were taken it was time to have a chest x-ray. What? A chest x-ray. Come on, I could understand if I wasn't healthy but what a waste of time. Then it was time to do an EKG even though I have a perfectly healthy heart, and have never had heart problems of any kind. I was loosing my patience so fast, and a couple of times I was getting really short with the staff as they were asking me different questions about my health. Again, lab work was supposed to be done fairly quickly, and my last appointment was scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Seeing how the time was now 4:00 p.m. and I still had one more appointment to go, I knew that things were not looking promising. My last appointment was meeting with the lovely ENT who will be assisting with the surgery. Apparently, he couldn't get enough of just looking through my nasal cavity with a light and decided to stick a metal scope up it instead. My nostril is so sore, oh my gosh. I am not sure it's a good sign either when all that he wanted to talk about is having to work with all of my "scar tissue" He made it perfectly clear that he hated fixing other doctor's work. Like it's my fault that my last ENT wasn't up to par with his standards. Call someone who cares.

I still have some left over valium from my MRI and I think that I may just take it before I go to bed tonight. I have so many mixed emotions right now. Do I cancel the surgery? That's what I feel like doing right at the moment. What a roller coaster ride this has been.

yes it's time for brain surgery

The time has come and I so wish it hadn't. I feel like I am finally healed completely from my brain surgery that was two years ago, and yet here we are again....

I haven't been able to sleep at all thinking about all that is going to happen. My biggest worry is making sure that my family is taken care of while I am recovering. My Mom will be here but still I have a hard time with letting other people take care of the job that is primarily mine.

The first time that I left Alyssa overnight was when she was three years old. We left her with my Mom while we went to Yellowstone. I think I called to check on her at least five times a day. I thought that it might get easier to leave your children the more you had but I found this to be the complete opposite for me. With our twins, there is no way that I would leave them overnight. In fact, it's our 10 year anniversary in two days, and one of the girls called from the ward wanting to watch the babies overnight so that Kevin and I could go stay somewhere. Kevin was so cute, and told her that he didn't even want to leave the babies. He and I are a lot a like in the fact that we just don't like to leave our kids which isn't a bad thing.

My ward had a special fast for me last Sunday, and I so appreciated it. I had several ward members who approached me just to let me know that they were thinking about me, and that they had been fasting for me. One lady in the ward had back surgery a while back and said that a fast was done for her. She bore her witness to me about fasting. I was also approached by our sweet Bishop's wife, Meredith. She told me that they were explaining the meaning of fasting to their six year old son Zach, and he asked if he could fast for me as well. Thank you to everyone who fasted for me. We have such an incredible ward here. I know that I could call anyone in the ward at any given time, and they would help where needed. I appreciate everyone who has helped with babysitting, I appreciate the phone calls, I appreciate the cute notes, and kind words of encouragement. Thank you so much.

I am headed off to hours worth of doctors appointments today. I hope that things will go smoothly. I really would like to cancel the surgery but I know that it's something that I need to do.

Surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday, July 14th and I will keep everyone updated. Again, thank you for all of your love and support. I couldn't do this without you!

One of my favorite TV shows is on the TLC network and it's called, 18 kids and counting. If you haven't ever seen it, I would highly recommend it. Michelle Duggar and her husband Jim Bob are the parents of 18 children. Michelle gave birth to every one of the children. The kids range in age from 20 years-7 months. Michelle has had a baby every 18 months since 1988. Can you imagine? (and people think that Kevin and I have a lot of kids) Michelle and Jim Bob are such great parents, and they devote every ounce of energy to raising successful, happy, and healthy Michelle and Jim Bob built a 7000 sq. ft. home only with the help of their children. The family has never been in debt, and they have also never been on any type of government assistance. Anyway, they are just an amazing family. I tell Kevin constantly that I would love to meet Michelle Duggar. I know that she could teach me a thing or two about parenting.

You are probably wondering why I am telling you about the Duggar family and here is why. Last night I had the craziest dream. I dreamt that Michelle Duggar was assisting with my brain surgery. They were going to let her make several cuts in the back of my skull. I kept asking the Neurosurgeon if he was sure about this, and he assured me that Michelle was the woman for the job. My dream felt so real, and I woke up this morning with such a sore head.

I really would love to meet Michelle Duggar sometime but I hope I won't be meeting her in the operating room.

Happy 4th of July

We had yet another wonderful 4th of July here in Tennessee. The whole weekend was filled with nothing but fun. Kevin had a 3 day weekend if you can believe it. It was also the first 4th of July that he has had off in 5 years so we just had to make it extra fun. We spent most of the weekend swimming with friends, eating good food. (speaking of food we even found a really good Greek restaurant that we tried), doing some projects around the house, and just spending time together. On Saturday, we headed over to the annual 4th of July party hosted by a family in our ward. This has become our Tennessee tradition, the kids had so much fun last year and haven't stopped talking about it since. I attempted to make my first double layer cake for this party, and it turned out rather well. I even put a raspberry filling in it. All of the food was very delicious!

I hope that everyone had a safe and wonderful 4th of July, I know that we did!

Today was seriously one of the weirdest days I have had in a long time, and it didn't start out that way. For starters, I had a man come to my door who looked about like this:

He claimed that I owned his dog who looks like this:

I explained to him that I did not own his dog nor had I ever seen this dog in the neighborhood. After much debate about this stupid mutt, he then tells me that his sister-in-law who lives across the street told him that she sold me this dog. (Now don't you think that you should probably meet someone at least once before you are doing transactions with them?) seeing how I have never met this woman, and that she has only been my neighbor for less than a month, I found this situation to be rather weird.

As I am talking to this redneck who is standing at my back door, my heart is pounding. What if he tries to come in and look for the dog? What if he is really a robber and is just making up this dumb story to see if anyone is home at this house during the day? You never know! There is nothing I hate more than solicitors. The solicitor who sticks out in my mind the most is this kid who is selling this magnificent cleaner. You know the cleaner, the one that claims to clean ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. I tell him I am not interested and send him on his way, but before he leaves he wants to show me how safe his cleaner is and he immediately starts to drink it straight from the bottle. Yuck, anyway I don't like solicitors, and hardly ever open my door to strange people who I dont' know. Back to my story.

I finally convince Mr. redneck that we don't have his dog, and I see him get in his truck and head down our driveway. A few minutes later, I see him now driving back and fourth in front of our house. I decide that for safety measures, I better just call the police department.

While I am waiting for the police department to arrive, I tell my girls to stay in the house and keep everything locked while I head over to the neighbors house to give them a piece of my mind. I knock on the door, and quickly my mind starts racing again. What if this is a set up? What if these people kill me right here on this porch. Oh no, my girls are all home alone, and they won't know what happened to me.I was terrified okay, what can I say? Well, my lovely neighbor opens the door, and I ask him why he is telling his relatives that I own his dog. He pretends to not know anything I am talking about. The house is full of guys who look like this, and who are

covered in tattoos from head to toe.They even invited me in. In a calm voice, I told them that I would stay outside on the porch. I told the man who opened the door to not get me involved with his drama, and I then hear his wife tell me that I don't need to worry about anything. (Worry, why would I worry, the vampire teeth couldn't hurt that bad could they?) I thought that people were just missing a lot of teeth in Tennessee, never before had I seen pure gold teeth.

I did make it home safely and the cops arrived to ask me about my experience. The cop apparently knows this family that just moved in, and has already been dealing with them for different reasons.

What happened to normal people is what I want to know? We have the hardest time getting nice people to move into our neighborhood.

I think that I am just going to enjoy the rest of my day inside with my doors locked, and I can only hope that the rest of my day will be somewhat NORMAL.