HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND

I'd like to thank Simon and Garfunkle for the brilliance of these lyrics. In one of my dehydrated, drugged out ER visits several years ago I muttered these words to Scott. It's become my code words to him that I'm miserably comfortable with my old IV friends, but will be ok in the end. I always appreciate his chuckle to this and have written it on my IV pole for a sense of comfort.

Christmas was the last day I felt well and I have been virtually bedridden since the end of January. I have a condition called Hyperemesis Gravadium. The dictionary should just define it as pregnancy hell, but there is a foundation that provides a more proper definition.

www.helpher.org

I'm part of a research study to try and link HG as a genetic auto-immune disorder. This is my third time around with it. You need not ask if we are having anymore kids after this!

I wanted to be able to paint a humerous picture of my HG journey, but it is impossible. The only positive side has been that I'm not throwing up (barely) through the medication. But the nausea and fatigue are unbarable much of the day. HG for me has included weeks of living off of less than 300 calories a day, mostly potatoes and toast. This might sound like an amazing weight loss plan (I call it the world war II diet), but it comes with passing out spells and being too weak to do anything but just exist. I've proven that you can hallucianate when you get too dehyrated and malnourished. I don't recommend trying this by the way. I'm constantly amazed at medical technology. My PICC line is now hooked to a backpack pump instead of the dreaded pole, and daily I'm reminded that it keeps me alive. To think that we can drink through our arms! For a while I ate through my nose. In case you are wondering, NG feeding tubes should be considered a form of torture that only the CIA is authrized to use for national security purposes. My nephew should be a national hero for enduring one for two years! Mine made my condition worse and I wimped out after four days, but it was worth any attempt to get more calories in. I also went nuts on the drug that accompanied it. I had to have Scott restrain me from trying to scratch all the skin off my arms. But at the time, I knew that my skin was the source of all my misery and I'd do better without it. Actually, I do find this somewhat humerous now. Along with two PICC lines, a clot in my shoulder, and countless hours spent just managing my health, I cannot wait for the next 5 months to pass quickly.

Although this has been very hard, the worst has been not being able to be a mom, a wife, and the keeper of our home. I've had to call in help for every aspect of our life. I can count on an average of 30 hours of help on any given week. These are all people coming to our home and taking care of everything that I cannot do. I have been touched to the point of tears of the help and love shown to us. I did not ask for help in my last pregnancy, which was a big mistake. We are all required to render service in our life. If God gives you a challenge it is likely his way of giving somebody else a needed opportunity to help you. As hard as it's been, having people constantly around has helped me stay positive and focused. There are still discouraging days where I feel very ill and the words "Thank You" seem too weak an expression. But our life will return to normal soon. In the mean time, I thank my husband for transforming daily from operations manager by day, super dad by night. He's been incredibly good to me, even when I look, and smell, less than desirable. But because of him and all the help around us, I've worked up to 1000 calories a day and the ability to actually get out of bed for a portion of the day. This progress will continue to be slow, but I am happy to have people cheering me each step of the way.

Amanda Follow Up W/Pictures

We had Amanda's appointment today at Primary Children's Hospital with the nuerosurgeon. Let me just say on behalf of Mary Ann and I, WHEEWWW!!! According to the doctor the cyst is nothing to worry about. It is not too uncommon and is not a risk of much and also not the cause of her headaches. We can't begin to explain the releif that is to all of us. Amanda has been very nervous about more tests, MRI's, and the realization she came to on her own of surgery. After the appointment she was getting back to herself and we celebrated with lunch at the hospital cafeteria with anything she wanted to eat. Maybe if I can figure out how to cut and paste the MRI pictures I'll post it and see if anyone can figure out where the cyst actually is.

So for the sake of catch up time, here are some photos from Amanda's 8th birthday party at the Classic Fun Center. This was her first official birthday party with friends outside of the family and somewhere other than here at home. It turned out very well other than Mary Ann wasn't feeling well enough to come. The other pictures are just some others that were on the camera that you may like of the girls.

One more time....WHEW!

Where Have We Been? / Why Families Are Essential.

First I'll try to wrap up why we haven't been adding to the blog for the last two months. Our last blog was announcing the Mary Ann's pregnancy and the "joy" that we knew would come with it. "Joy" is both meant to be real and sarcastic. As we expected, this pregnancy has presented itself with the same problems as the last pregnancy. Mary Ann didn't take long before she ended up with a pic line. And unfortunately, like the previous pregnancy, the pic line already formed a blood clot. Fortunately, though, since she's been through this before, she has been able to recognize the symptoms and catch it early. Mary Ann has spent most of the days over the last two or so months pretty motionless. Hopefully I can get her to explain more of what she has been struggling through herself.

Also, during this time, Amanda has turned 8 years old and was baptized. We are very proud of her and her decision to want to be baptized. She did very well. She has had lots of help from her grandmas and aunts to get ready for the event. Our neighbor down the street did her hair for her and she looked great in her baptism dress. I will post photos of the baptism when I get a chance.

On top of all of the above going on, we've had another very stressful situation to deal with. Amanda has been having headaches too often and some were very severe. Based on the symptoms and severity we were advised to have her do an MRI. She didn't like that at all. It was a very stressful and scary thing for her to do. Unfortunately, Mom wasn't able to go with Amanda to the MRI appointment but her Aunt Carol took time off of work to help Amanda through the scary process. Again, I could fill a page or two about that event as well. All I will say right now is thanks to Carol for her help in getting Amanda through it and Amanda doesn't every want to have another MRI again.

The worst part is that the MRI was done over a month ago and they found a cyst on her brain. We have had an appointment setup with a nuerosurgeon at Primary Children's Hospital on Monday for quite a while now and we have been nervous, anxious, worried, and all other emotional descriptions while waiting for this appointment to come up.

As we watch the medical bills get racked up for the family, we, like everyone else, worry about jobs, etc. Like so many others, we deal with the stress of cutting benefits, less pay, more stress, and wondering if we will still have a job next month. And, if you can believe it, during all of this I am still a happy man. Here's why.

Why families are essential.

With all of this going on over the last couple of months I find myself blessed to have what I do. I have a wonderful wife who has been strong in tough times. She has been reduced in what she can do but has grown in who she is. I, of course, do not refer to her size as she is pregnant. Due to the pregnancy she has lost a lot of weight and energy. Where she should be gaining weight and size she has instead lost a lot of weight. The doctors assure us the baby is fine and healthy, though. I am also blessed by two wonderful daughters that can be challenging, but seem to be more and more rewarding with each new experience.

Plainly speaking, we would not be able to go through our current struggles without the help and support of family. I am so grateful for the families we have. The type of support we have received has been everything from physical labor to emotional support. We've had family (and friends) providing support for our kids and help share the burden. We can't thank everyone enough for stepping in to help where they can. In the past I was asked to consider moving to Denver and Indianapolis. I couldn't imagine going through what we are now if we didn't have the close family here with us.

Through all of this I've been able to see my daughters grow. It was great to have the opportunity to baptize Amanda and see her grow as a member of the church. I've also been able to get Erin to have prayers in her room together at night. She is getting to have a better understanding. She doesn't fully get it yet, but I was blessed the other night when I was getting Erin ready for bed. She really wanted to bring her princess bag to bed but couldn't find it. I told Erin we should say our prayers and ask for help finding it. She said OK and we did. As soon as we both said amen, she opened her eyes and said, "there it is!" Sure enough, the bag was hiding in plain sight across the room. If you have ever had a kid that won't fall asleep unless she has everything in place you will know what a blessing this was.

We have great families and I could go on and on about it. Take time to give thanks for whatever family blessings you have.

The News - Part II

If you are familiar with the picture on the previous post you will know that the blurry blob of a photo is of a rice grain sized organism currently residing in my wife's innards. Allow me to share some of the responses of people that have been informed of the news.

- "Oh CRAP!" (That was mine)
- "What are you crazy?!?"
- "You know...they have ways to prevent this from happening."
- "Congratulations?"
- "Are you nuts?"

If you weren't around us over 3 years ago you may not be aware of the terrible difficulty it was to get the evil one, I mean Erin, here. (She's getting better.) With Erin's pregnancy Mary Ann was pretty sick. She never made it onto official bed-rest, but she did plenty of time on the bed. Oh, and there was that occasional trip to the ER, the pick line inserted into her arm giving her the fluids and medication through 2 bags of IV a day, the blood clot the pick line caused the last month of pregnancy, which caused the need for blood thinner injections twice a day, and the inability for pain medication during the delivery due to the blood thinners.

The IV pole became part of the family during that time. Mary Ann couldn't part with it. She still hangs a stocking from it every year at Christmas. Through that rough pregnancy I was out of town a lot for work. It was hard. I was hoping to post some photos of Mar looking miserable during that last pregnancy, but I don't have any. I think she wouldn't let me take her photo or there just weren't that many "happy" occassions to think to bring a long a camera. Here' one of the only ones I could find. (That urine colored bag on the pole is IV fluid with vitamins and anti-nautia medication injected into it.)


Though we are both trying to stay pretty optimistic about this one, Mary Ann is already feeling the woes of pregnancy and is downing her fair share of anti-nautia pills. (Thank goodness it went generic and is probably 1/20th the price it used to be.) She already expects the "hookup" to become part of her daily routine again.

Its going to be a long 7 more months. No more eating out as a family. Oh yeah, Erin already ruined that with her allergies. No amusement parks as a family. Bad idea anyway. That may have been what turned Erin evil in the womb. And, oh yeah, the discussion about the third child and the dreaded words...mini....van. AAAHHHHHHHHHH!

The News

Something To Do While Sick

I have a confession to make. I've been sick for about the last week. (That's not the confession.) When your sick you don't feel like doing much. So there's usually a lot of daytime TV that gets watched on the first day that just makes you want to go back to work. So you go back to work the next day and find out your body isn't ready to go back to work and you end up taking another day off. You try to watch a movie or two that you've been wanting to catch up on.

Here's an alternative. Sure, reading a book, scriptures, or some other hobby might be more constructive. But (here's the confession) I've put in numerous hours watching Top Gear on youtube over the last couple of days. For those that don't know Top Gear is a british TV series on BBC America about cars. My brother Ed showed us this show once last year and I can't seem to get enough. We don't have BBC America so we resort to the wonderful youtube or you can go to their website. http://www.topgear.com/us/videos

I've put some youtube spots on the sidebar as well. Where else can you see guys launch cars like darts, race old mini-vans, play soccer with Minis, take a scary road trip through the south, race a bullet train through Japan, or ride Vespas through Vietnam. The outcome is hilarious. It by far is the best thing on TV, or the internet if you don't have the channel.

Even if you don't have apassion for cars, the presentation is great. Next time you are sick or just have time to kill, direct your youtube search to top gear usa, or top gear viet nam. It has some definite laugh out loud moments.

- Scott

Top Ten Things I Learned in 2008

10. How to blog. Yes I still have to ask Scott how to log in. I never said I was a blog master.
9. That construction on your home WILL take twice as long to complete as promised and WILL cost twice as much as you think it will. As such, our basement still sits unfinished!
8. That Erin really isn't evil, but food allergies will make you think that of her. (by the way, rice icecream is horribly expensive!)
7. That in our lovely city, you can go 2 months without mowing your lawn without getting a citation! There is the consequence of your neighbors not being able to sell their home as they would have liked. But it was so cool to prove that rye grass can grow past 24 inches.
6. Don't invest in the 2008 stock market - unless it's in rice ice cream.
5. That our 7 year old really doesn't understand why she cannot eat like a squirrel at the dinner table.
4. 20 gallons of different paints, primers, and undercoaters in an enclosed home is NOT a good idea. Now I understand why my father, the painter, is such a jolly guy all the time.
3. That we can actually enjoy a family vacation together again.
2. That Erin is never going to sleep through the night.
And the number one thing I learned in 2008........................
1. That the animal conspiracy is true and I think they've gotten to my 7 year old!!! See for yourself at www.vaguebuttrue.com
-Mary Ann:.)