February 2020
So Many Words
We decided to count all of the words that Little Miss knows now that she is 18 months old. Can you believe it - she knows almost 150 words! Some of her favorites are blanket, car seat, pillow, you're welcome (she learned that and Haka from the movie Moana), phone, piggies, vacuum, and chapstick. Of course her favorite word is Kalel, which she yells all of the time when he isn't here.
Lunch with Ellen Kay and Tammy
Tammy and I met Ellen Kay for lunch at Old Grist Mill. I haven't seen Ellen Kay for several years, but she just moved back from Texas so we decided that we needed to catch up. It was such a fun lunch! We ended up staying for several hours. We talked about everything from memories of high school to current joys and worries of our lives. I can't wait until we can get together again!
Lori's Mastectomy
Lori's surgery went well. They were even able to start the reconstructive process. She has balloons inserted that will be filled a little at a time so that the skin can stretch in order to put implants in a few months. She got the results of all of the node testing and they were all clear! Hurray - no chemo or radiation. That is such good news!
Anniversary Condo in Bear Lake
We had made plans a long time ago to spend our anniversary with Doug and Lori. Their anniversary is only 3 days after ours so we always tease Kim and Doug when they forget which date that they are married to the other one of us. That didn't make much sense - but we have long talked about celebrating our anniversaries together. We were very excited that we were finally going to celebrate together, but had to cancel due to Lori's surgery.
Kim and I decided that we would still go to the condo at Bear Lake. Kim was tired and wanted to sleep on the trip over so I drove. About 3/4 of the way there I could tell he wasn't feeling very good. All of a sudden he motioned me to pull over and then he immediately opened the door and lost his cookies! I am the world's worst person with vomit, so I just stuck my nose on the window and started singing to myself trying to ignore what Kim was doing! He finally finished and we were able to make it the rest of the way to the condo. By the time we got into the condo, I could tell he was suffering from a full case of influenza, cough, fever, body aches, nausea, the whole works. He was miserable. We had bought a new game called Splendor that was really fun, but he was only able to play a couple of times because he felt so lousy.
To add to the "fun" we were having, Shandra called several times worried because Little Miss was also starting to fever and be sick. She was trying to decide if she needed to take her to the hospital. Luckily Tylenol and a humidifier eased her symptoms and Shandra didn't need to take her in. Needless to say, it was not the fun weekend we had envisioned. I felt that we were too far away to be any help to Shandra or to my sister with Mark's surgery.
We were scheduled to check out and return home Saturday afternoon, but at 8:00 in the morning Robin called me and asked me to come home to spend time with Ashley and Mark at the hospital because she couldn't. We immediately packed up and left for home. Can I just say - WORST ANNIVERSARY EVER! The only positive thing was that the staff at Worldmark brought us a little anniversary gift.
When we arrived, Mark had been fighting a bloody nose for over 24 hours. Fortunately, it wasn't gushing, it was just a trickle that would never stop. They gave him a transfusion of platelets that caused it to slow and clot a little, however, it didn't stop bleeding. They finally called in an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) doctor. He found that the platelets had caused some of the blood to clot in Mark's throat, so he took a little suction-vacuum and sucked all of the clots out. It was pretty gross! And then the doctor inserted tampon-like tools into his nostrils. These tools expanded and swelled when they get wet, so they put pressure from the inside to stop the bleeding. It was VERY painful when they inserted them, so we decided to leave, and he asked that no one, even Ashley, come to visit him until they were removed.
The nose crushers were removed two days later and Mark was able to come home a few days after that. However, it is not looking like the spleen removal is helping his platelets. The next course of action involves a new medication recommended by the Mayo Clinic that encourages platelet growth. He starts that at the end of the month. It is very expensive, about $20,000 per month.
Lunch with Terri Bergeson
Last November at my Aunt Lona's birthday I found out that my cousin Terri is now living in Layton and has Mondays off. Since I don't teach on Mondays I decided to message Terri and see if we could get together for lunch. We met at Roosters because she wanted the Ahi tuna salad, apparently, she is a seafood fanatic. It was so great to catch up with her! Our birthdays are only two days apart so when we were little we always played together when we could. She lived in California when she was young, so we didn't see each other much except when she vacationed. She moved to Utah in her teens, right across from our Grandmother's house. Actually, she is my mother's cousin, so it was her Grandma and my Great-grandma King, but my Grandma Offret lived there too. Anyway, we had a fabulous time catching up and plan to get together more often since we now are so close.
House Hunting
Shandra has been thinking that she wants to move to a place that has three bedrooms since her condo only has two. Right now Little Miss is sleeping in her room, and she thinks it will be difficult to move her into Kalel's room since he is almost a teenager. Anyway, just for kicks, I started looking, I had been thinking lately that it would be really nice to have a place without a yard to take care of and without a lot of stairs. Ta Da! There actually was a place like I have been dreaming of, and it was even in our price range. (By the way, house prices are crazy high right now! My parents' house has appreciated over $100,000 in just over a year! The average house right now is $275,000 - $300,000). Shandra was more than willing to buy our house (at a discounted price) so that we could look at buying the place I found. There were a couple of things that weren't perfect about this new place, but overall I was in love. I was very close to putting an offer on it, but Shandra realized that she would feel a little too strapped, so we stopped the process and just decided to all remain where we are. It was fun to dream for a little while! But, honestly I am relieved to not have to pack and move!
BJ Angelversary
Since I was sick on BJ's birthday we decided to celebrate his Angelversary instead. We got balloons for all of us and headed up to the cemetery - but I guess we forgot that it was still winter - there was so much snow we couldn't get to his headstone without sinking to our knees in snow! BJ's headstone could barely be seen peeking up out of the snow! None of us had thought to wear boots, so we just sang happy birthday and released the balloons from the outside gate.
Winter Blues
The last 8 weeks have been hard. I always struggle with the winter months, and with our illnesses, it has been even worse this year. Depression is rampant. I am feeling a little better right now, but I have spent much of the last two months feeling deep despair, mostly having to do with my inadequacies. When I get like this I can't seem to find any value in my life, over and over again I hear voices in my head that say, "you are worthless, you can't do anything right, the world would be better without you". Don't get me wrong, I don't think I ever truly get suicidal, but the voices are there, discounting any value in my life. Usually I can kick it at work, but this year I struggled even at work and broke down in tears. A friend recommended that I start taking vitamin B as well as D, and I think it has made it a little better. The voices don't seem to come as frequently since I started taking them. The one thing that helps more than anything is the fact that I know that it rarely lasts after February. No, I don't remember that when I am at my worst, but Kim is fabulous about reminding me. So, my mantra lately has been, "March is almost here, and February will be over!".
Joan's hospitalization
I was diligently chanting my mantra when my dear mother-in-law ruined my joy that February was almost over. Jody called me and said that Joan was running a fever and was having trouble getting her breath. She has had pneumonia so many times that we always take these symptoms seriously. We asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital and she indicated that she did. I was glad that Kim was with me as we took her to the local ER. She is so little and frail that Kim could lift her without much effort. After several tests and many hours in the ER, she was admitted to the hospital. Our hospital doesn't have an ICU, but they have an acute care that is similar to an ICU, and she was admitted there. She was absolutely exhausted and pretty much was sleeping (unconscious?) most of that night and the next day. After antibiotics she seemed to be improving, but then she suddenly took a turn for the worse. Kim asked me if I thought we should call and have Doug come out. I didn't know for sure, but I felt that it would be better to err on the side of caution, so Doug caught a flight out. As of today, we spend most of our time with family in the hospital waiting room. Her oxygen needs have increased dramatically and she sleeps most of the time. It is such a weird circumstance to be in, we all love her so much, but she has been in so much pain for so long. . .
We decided to count all of the words that Little Miss knows now that she is 18 months old. Can you believe it - she knows almost 150 words! Some of her favorites are blanket, car seat, pillow, you're welcome (she learned that and Haka from the movie Moana), phone, piggies, vacuum, and chapstick. Of course her favorite word is Kalel, which she yells all of the time when he isn't here.
Lunch with Ellen Kay and Tammy
Tammy and I met Ellen Kay for lunch at Old Grist Mill. I haven't seen Ellen Kay for several years, but she just moved back from Texas so we decided that we needed to catch up. It was such a fun lunch! We ended up staying for several hours. We talked about everything from memories of high school to current joys and worries of our lives. I can't wait until we can get together again!
Lori's Mastectomy
Lori's surgery went well. They were even able to start the reconstructive process. She has balloons inserted that will be filled a little at a time so that the skin can stretch in order to put implants in a few months. She got the results of all of the node testing and they were all clear! Hurray - no chemo or radiation. That is such good news!
Anniversary Condo in Bear Lake
We had made plans a long time ago to spend our anniversary with Doug and Lori. Their anniversary is only 3 days after ours so we always tease Kim and Doug when they forget which date that they are married to the other one of us. That didn't make much sense - but we have long talked about celebrating our anniversaries together. We were very excited that we were finally going to celebrate together, but had to cancel due to Lori's surgery.
Kim and I decided that we would still go to the condo at Bear Lake. Kim was tired and wanted to sleep on the trip over so I drove. About 3/4 of the way there I could tell he wasn't feeling very good. All of a sudden he motioned me to pull over and then he immediately opened the door and lost his cookies! I am the world's worst person with vomit, so I just stuck my nose on the window and started singing to myself trying to ignore what Kim was doing! He finally finished and we were able to make it the rest of the way to the condo. By the time we got into the condo, I could tell he was suffering from a full case of influenza, cough, fever, body aches, nausea, the whole works. He was miserable. We had bought a new game called Splendor that was really fun, but he was only able to play a couple of times because he felt so lousy.
To add to the "fun" we were having, Shandra called several times worried because Little Miss was also starting to fever and be sick. She was trying to decide if she needed to take her to the hospital. Luckily Tylenol and a humidifier eased her symptoms and Shandra didn't need to take her in. Needless to say, it was not the fun weekend we had envisioned. I felt that we were too far away to be any help to Shandra or to my sister with Mark's surgery.
We were scheduled to check out and return home Saturday afternoon, but at 8:00 in the morning Robin called me and asked me to come home to spend time with Ashley and Mark at the hospital because she couldn't. We immediately packed up and left for home. Can I just say - WORST ANNIVERSARY EVER! The only positive thing was that the staff at Worldmark brought us a little anniversary gift.
Update on Mark
Shandra and I picked up Ashley and ran down to the hospital to see Mark. His platelet counts have not been getting any better and so the doctors decided to remove his spleen in hopes that it would help the situation. It was scary because his platelets were only at 2,000 on the day of surgery. Even though his surgery was done laparoscopically with three little holes his bruising was awful!
When we arrived, Mark had been fighting a bloody nose for over 24 hours. Fortunately, it wasn't gushing, it was just a trickle that would never stop. They gave him a transfusion of platelets that caused it to slow and clot a little, however, it didn't stop bleeding. They finally called in an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) doctor. He found that the platelets had caused some of the blood to clot in Mark's throat, so he took a little suction-vacuum and sucked all of the clots out. It was pretty gross! And then the doctor inserted tampon-like tools into his nostrils. These tools expanded and swelled when they get wet, so they put pressure from the inside to stop the bleeding. It was VERY painful when they inserted them, so we decided to leave, and he asked that no one, even Ashley, come to visit him until they were removed.
The nose crushers were removed two days later and Mark was able to come home a few days after that. However, it is not looking like the spleen removal is helping his platelets. The next course of action involves a new medication recommended by the Mayo Clinic that encourages platelet growth. He starts that at the end of the month. It is very expensive, about $20,000 per month.
Lunch with Terri Bergeson
Last November at my Aunt Lona's birthday I found out that my cousin Terri is now living in Layton and has Mondays off. Since I don't teach on Mondays I decided to message Terri and see if we could get together for lunch. We met at Roosters because she wanted the Ahi tuna salad, apparently, she is a seafood fanatic. It was so great to catch up with her! Our birthdays are only two days apart so when we were little we always played together when we could. She lived in California when she was young, so we didn't see each other much except when she vacationed. She moved to Utah in her teens, right across from our Grandmother's house. Actually, she is my mother's cousin, so it was her Grandma and my Great-grandma King, but my Grandma Offret lived there too. Anyway, we had a fabulous time catching up and plan to get together more often since we now are so close.
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| We thought we took pictures at lunch, but we can't find them so I stole this one off Facebook! |
Shandra has been thinking that she wants to move to a place that has three bedrooms since her condo only has two. Right now Little Miss is sleeping in her room, and she thinks it will be difficult to move her into Kalel's room since he is almost a teenager. Anyway, just for kicks, I started looking, I had been thinking lately that it would be really nice to have a place without a yard to take care of and without a lot of stairs. Ta Da! There actually was a place like I have been dreaming of, and it was even in our price range. (By the way, house prices are crazy high right now! My parents' house has appreciated over $100,000 in just over a year! The average house right now is $275,000 - $300,000). Shandra was more than willing to buy our house (at a discounted price) so that we could look at buying the place I found. There were a couple of things that weren't perfect about this new place, but overall I was in love. I was very close to putting an offer on it, but Shandra realized that she would feel a little too strapped, so we stopped the process and just decided to all remain where we are. It was fun to dream for a little while! But, honestly I am relieved to not have to pack and move!
BJ Angelversary
Since I was sick on BJ's birthday we decided to celebrate his Angelversary instead. We got balloons for all of us and headed up to the cemetery - but I guess we forgot that it was still winter - there was so much snow we couldn't get to his headstone without sinking to our knees in snow! BJ's headstone could barely be seen peeking up out of the snow! None of us had thought to wear boots, so we just sang happy birthday and released the balloons from the outside gate.
We were so happy when we got home to see our very favorite dessert there waiting for us.
The Wildings are always so good to us to bring us this dessert every year. I know I have talked about this tradition of bringing Chocolate Fattening Dessert (or Chocolate Ecstasy) every year, but it never ceases to bring very tender emotions. Each year on the anniversary of our sons' deaths we have something special to look forward to. Even though it has now been 16 years, it still is a hard day, and looking forward to the dessert helps in a way that I can't put into words. It is amazing, and I'm so grateful for it.
Joan's hospitalization
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| Meeting the newest member of the family |
Coronavirus - COVID-19 - and stuff
There has been a lot of news lately about a virus in China that has spread rapidly and has killed many people. People who were on cruise ships had been exposed and were quarantined on the ship for up to two weeks. The virus has now spread to other countries. My boss, Andy, left our company to take his wife to her home country, Korea, for medical treatments actually ended up bringing all of her family here to avoid exposure to the virus. I briefly considered applying for his job but decided that I just want to teach. Also, it is an election year and the politicians are going crazy! I hate all the arguing, dirt-throwing, and bad-mouthing that is going on in politics! It makes me crazy. I think I would get more involved in politics if everyone would just state their viewpoints without feeling like they have to drag everyone else through the mud. Kim is following a lot of it, so he gives me the news so I don't have to watch it.
KIM'S FAVORITE MEMES
THIS MONTH
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