I'm riding my bike 100 miles to help cure and prevent diabetes. I don't have this condition but many of my family members deal with this disease every day. Plus, its fun to ride a bike and make new friends. I hope you'll be a part of this ride and be a sponsor by clicking on the following link.
http://tinyurl.com/3fgp36
Monday, June 2, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
You Never Know When You're Gonna Get Wet
We just got back from a wonderful vacation at Disneyland, Universal Studios, Sea World, San Diego Zoo and snorkeling at The Cove in La Jolla. It was the dream honeymoon we should have gone on eight years ago. The theme was "you never know when you're gonna get wet".
With temperatures pushing the 90's, 10 degrees above normal, water was the thought on everyone's mind. Thankfully, the heat didn't put a damper on our spirits too much. We just put on sunblock and headed for the water rides. I can't spend the time to bore you with a travel log. I'll just post some photo highlights as I can.
With temperatures pushing the 90's, 10 degrees above normal, water was the thought on everyone's mind. Thankfully, the heat didn't put a damper on our spirits too much. We just put on sunblock and headed for the water rides. I can't spend the time to bore you with a travel log. I'll just post some photo highlights as I can.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Be a sponsor for my ride in Tour de Cure!
I am riding in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure. I need to raise at least $250. Also, I will be representing the Utah Velo Club at the SOLD OUT Stadium of Fire on my mountain bike! Click the link below to donate! Several members of my family on both sides have Diabetes in one form or another. Help find a cure!
http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=5056&px=4181577
TTYL
http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=5056&px=4181577
TTYL
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Open Thoracotomy and Disneyland
Warning, graphic content:
Yeah, I knew you couldn't resist. For all you nurses or macabre thinkers out there, this story is for you. I promise, I won't turn this into a journal of gross nursing stories but this one is a 'classic'.
Recently, while responding to a code blue in the ICU I saw a bedside open thoracotomy. That means they crack the chest open right in the patient's room and intervene with 'cardiac massage' and/or pacing. I won't get into details but it was very interesting. However, I have to think of the family and patient. The guy survived, as far as I know. Probably with a very sore chest.
So, on a lighter note, we are going to Disneyland next week for our anniversary! WEeeeee!
Out...
Yeah, I knew you couldn't resist. For all you nurses or macabre thinkers out there, this story is for you. I promise, I won't turn this into a journal of gross nursing stories but this one is a 'classic'.
Recently, while responding to a code blue in the ICU I saw a bedside open thoracotomy. That means they crack the chest open right in the patient's room and intervene with 'cardiac massage' and/or pacing. I won't get into details but it was very interesting. However, I have to think of the family and patient. The guy survived, as far as I know. Probably with a very sore chest.
So, on a lighter note, we are going to Disneyland next week for our anniversary! WEeeeee!
Out...
Monday, April 28, 2008
I hope I didn't create a monster with this blog. I actually am stressing out about how to fit work, school, family, etc. into the short hours of the day. There's never enough time to do my favorite thing and that's riding. We'll see if I get to do more of that this Summer. I wait all Winter for the weather to be good. I get flustered when a nice sunny day goes to "waste" with me inside doing homework or whatever. BUT-there are more important things to life, like spending time with Kari. Wouldn't it be nice if the 45 each way I spend driving to work could be spend riding!? Maybe some day.
Signing off...
Signing off...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
We were pregnant!
So, the first thing people ask me when they are getting to know me is if I'm married. I say and that it's been 8 years. Then they ask if we have any kids and I say 'no'. Every time I answer that question, something that happened to us last February comes to mind.
Not may people know this because it has been painful to tell but we were officially pregnant for about 5 weeks this year. Complete with 3 positive pregancy tests. EPT in fact. About 3 or 4 weeks in, Kari starts to complain about some lower abdominal pain. This is our first preganacy so neither of us knows whether its normal. Being nurses doesn't help with this either. After a while the pain becomes unbearable and we head to the ER in the middle of the night. It was such a relief to see Alana, a former nursing school collegue working in the ER at Timpanogos when we arrived.
Neither of us had been patients in a hospital, though we obviously felt comfortable due to our work. Being nurses actually really helped us understand the whole experience much better. The nurses we had were awesome, even though they were a bit nervous once they knew we were both nurses. I even helped with some of their duties when they needed it...
Ok, back to the story. After we got the ER, all we could think about was getting the pain under control. After that, we went in for an ultrasound to see what the pain was. Long story short, they couldn't find anything so they sent us home but said to come back if the pain came back. We got a referral to one of the best OB/GYNs, Julie Grover for a followup. She would be keeping a close eye on our case.
A week later to the day, the pain comes back, only worse. Kari was getting ready for work but ended up with me taking her to the ER again. This is February 13th. They did a couple of exams and an ultrasound. While in the ultrasound room, the tech called in a Dr. for a confirmation of some finding that looked round but they didn't tell us anything at that time. They wheeled us to our room back in the ER and we get word that Kari is going in for emergency surgery for a laproscopic tubule pregnancy removal. It happens to be Dr. Grover's day off, so it takes a bit for her to get there.
They wheel Kari in to the surgery and I waited in the Same Day surgery area for an hour. I'm going through all the worst case scenarios. Finally the Dr. comes in with pictures of some of the stages of the proceedure. We were worried she would loose her right fallopian tube due to the need to remove that along with the zygote/fetus/embryo. Turns out, thanks to all the prayers and priesthood blessings, they didn't have to take the tube. The worst thing was that she would have a 10% chance of another tubule pregancy. We would have to be vigilant from now on for this happening again. I was very, very grateful.
Here's the scary part. When they first found the tubule pregnancy, they estimated there was about 80cc or 3 tablespoons of "free fluid", probably blood, in Kari's abdomen. By the time the surgery was done, she had lost 800cc's! That's almost a quart, or over 2 units. The doctor said the hardest thing about the surgery was getting the bleeding to stop. SCARRY!!!! If she had gone one more day without treatment, I would have been a widower, seriously. I am soooooooooooooooo thankful for modern medicine. Words cannot describe!!!!!!
Anyway, I will spare you some of the other details but Kari is okay now. The only thing she has is three 1/2 scars on her tummy, a little bit of small bladder syndrome and a tender heart. Obviously this is very rough for her because we want kids so bad.
We can still have kids and look forward to the day when we'll be blessed with our first full term child. What this experience does for me is give me an appreciation for many things including the priesthood, our friends and family, modern medicine and most of all for Kari. I also have some understanding of what couples go through when they encounter difficulties having children.
To celebrate our happy marriage together, we're going to Disneyland for our 8th anniverary next May 19th!
Thanks to everyone who helped us through this experience!
Not may people know this because it has been painful to tell but we were officially pregnant for about 5 weeks this year. Complete with 3 positive pregancy tests. EPT in fact. About 3 or 4 weeks in, Kari starts to complain about some lower abdominal pain. This is our first preganacy so neither of us knows whether its normal. Being nurses doesn't help with this either. After a while the pain becomes unbearable and we head to the ER in the middle of the night. It was such a relief to see Alana, a former nursing school collegue working in the ER at Timpanogos when we arrived.
Neither of us had been patients in a hospital, though we obviously felt comfortable due to our work. Being nurses actually really helped us understand the whole experience much better. The nurses we had were awesome, even though they were a bit nervous once they knew we were both nurses. I even helped with some of their duties when they needed it...
Ok, back to the story. After we got the ER, all we could think about was getting the pain under control. After that, we went in for an ultrasound to see what the pain was. Long story short, they couldn't find anything so they sent us home but said to come back if the pain came back. We got a referral to one of the best OB/GYNs, Julie Grover for a followup. She would be keeping a close eye on our case.
A week later to the day, the pain comes back, only worse. Kari was getting ready for work but ended up with me taking her to the ER again. This is February 13th. They did a couple of exams and an ultrasound. While in the ultrasound room, the tech called in a Dr. for a confirmation of some finding that looked round but they didn't tell us anything at that time. They wheeled us to our room back in the ER and we get word that Kari is going in for emergency surgery for a laproscopic tubule pregnancy removal. It happens to be Dr. Grover's day off, so it takes a bit for her to get there.
They wheel Kari in to the surgery and I waited in the Same Day surgery area for an hour. I'm going through all the worst case scenarios. Finally the Dr. comes in with pictures of some of the stages of the proceedure. We were worried she would loose her right fallopian tube due to the need to remove that along with the zygote/fetus/embryo. Turns out, thanks to all the prayers and priesthood blessings, they didn't have to take the tube. The worst thing was that she would have a 10% chance of another tubule pregancy. We would have to be vigilant from now on for this happening again. I was very, very grateful.
Here's the scary part. When they first found the tubule pregnancy, they estimated there was about 80cc or 3 tablespoons of "free fluid", probably blood, in Kari's abdomen. By the time the surgery was done, she had lost 800cc's! That's almost a quart, or over 2 units. The doctor said the hardest thing about the surgery was getting the bleeding to stop. SCARRY!!!! If she had gone one more day without treatment, I would have been a widower, seriously. I am soooooooooooooooo thankful for modern medicine. Words cannot describe!!!!!!
Anyway, I will spare you some of the other details but Kari is okay now. The only thing she has is three 1/2 scars on her tummy, a little bit of small bladder syndrome and a tender heart. Obviously this is very rough for her because we want kids so bad.
We can still have kids and look forward to the day when we'll be blessed with our first full term child. What this experience does for me is give me an appreciation for many things including the priesthood, our friends and family, modern medicine and most of all for Kari. I also have some understanding of what couples go through when they encounter difficulties having children.
To celebrate our happy marriage together, we're going to Disneyland for our 8th anniverary next May 19th!
Thanks to everyone who helped us through this experience!
Wow, I'm a blogger now!
I've officially been swept up by this blogging craze. Actually, I'm hoping to keep in touch with friends in the most efficient way possible. I have lots of work school and family things going on but I want to keep in touch too. School has been going on for TOO long so its time to be friendly.
Obviously I can't update everything that has happened since, jeez where to start...Maybe some of the most significant things in our lives, good or bad. Actually, bad things might seem bad at first but turn out to be a good thing. I will try to look for the good in the bad things as much as possible. If I start to sound pesimistic, let me know.
Also, I realize a potential employer or someone might want to see what I do in my private life. Don't expect too much candor here. I will try to rein it in for that reason. That said, I will just get down to bloggin'.
Obviously I can't update everything that has happened since, jeez where to start...Maybe some of the most significant things in our lives, good or bad. Actually, bad things might seem bad at first but turn out to be a good thing. I will try to look for the good in the bad things as much as possible. If I start to sound pesimistic, let me know.
Also, I realize a potential employer or someone might want to see what I do in my private life. Don't expect too much candor here. I will try to rein it in for that reason. That said, I will just get down to bloggin'.
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