Thanksgiving 2014

This Thanksgiving was a little bit of a bust for me because when I woke up I still was not feeling well. I did go upstairs and it was nice to see everyone but I was still a little bummed about the happenings of the previous day. Staying downstairs gave me some time to think about everything and I came to the conclusion that I need to start living my life first and worry about the sickness second. I am by no means giving up on finding out what is wrong or finding an answer but I have learned I can't live my life from drs appointment to appointment. I have two beautiful girls that I feel I have been missing out on their lives and I need to focus on them. Having said that, we will still push forward and try to conquer this thing!

Chilling on Thanksgiving morning. I think we were watching the Macy's Day Parade.

 

In the afternoon, Sean's family all went out for thanksgiving dinner at Tucanos. I wasn't feeling well enough, so I stayed home and took a 3 hour nap. It did help me feel a little better but I still wasn't 100%. Later that night we just hung around and talked and watched a movie called "The Giver" and just took it pretty easy. While the morning wasn't the greatest the evening turned out nice.

 

 

After Tucono's Maia had a lot of fun playing some boxes we had laying around.

This one was big enough for her to climb into and then she would say "shutted the door" meaning she wanted us to close the wings of the box.

We later colored on the other box. It was fun to get to play with her and see her creativity.

 

I did do a bit of online Black Friday shopping which for me was nice since there was no way I was going make it out in my condition and I really didn't feel like going out, which is saying something because I usually love Black Friday shopping. I was able to get quite a few good deals on amazon which really helped out with my Christmas shopping. On Friday, Sean and I went up to Eric and Kathryn's for dinner and to play with James and Julia. Sean's parents decided that it would be nice to take off and go to St. George and spend the night so they weren't home when we got home.

 

Dinner buddies.

Maia and James play pretty well together and here they were getting ready to listen to music and dance.

On Saturday, we got to celebrate Brittany's birthday! She had to work and with Kathy and Terry gone, I decided that I would make a cake for Brittany. She was on a gluten free diet at the time to see if it would help with some arthritis she was having. Since I'm gluten free it was fun to make her a cake that avoided her allergies. Luckily it turned out well and everyone enjoyed it. Brit loves Tai food and so they brought tai food for dinner. The little bit that I had was yummy and I have to say it wasn't too bad coming back up. Brit has been an amazing help with Maia and Kassia and I think that she is an amazing woman and friend. I am so lucky to have her as a sister in-law and to have the relationship I do with her. Happy birthday Brit! I hope it was a good one!

Dinner!!

The allergy free cake.

Happenings

This last week has been quite an interesting one. First it was different not having Maia around. She went home with my mom for the week and I have to say she has definitely been missed. She is a live wire and the house has been pretty quite all week. I will admit though, it has been nice not having to worry about her and it has given me a chance to heal a little bit.

On Monday I had a chiropractors appointment and I have to say I will probably not be returning to that chiropractor. I really do believe in the healing powers of chiropractic care, unfortunately I felt like I didn't get anywhere with this dr. 

Tuesday I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Peugh. That was another appointment that I felt didn't really get me anywhere. Dr Peugh let me know the results of my 48 hour ph monitoring came back only slightly abnormal. I had one day that was extremely normal and the next day was pretty abnormal, but the average of the two days put me in the normal range. Dr Peugh however read the test as that I have acid reflux. I told the dr that the second day a by far the worst day I had had for a long time and wished that it had gone on for another 24 hours. Well Dr Peugh then said that he could fix my acid reflux problem by doing a fundolocation, which is a surgery where they take the top part of the stomach, the fundus, and wrap it around the bottom of the esophagus. After they are done, you can't throw up and you can't even burp. I told him that didn't seam like a very good option and he responded that he would be interested to see what my gi dr, Dr Kawa, would say. As we were leaving he said that he would probably be seeing me again.

Wednesday was fairly low key for the most part until the evening when I was able to go to BYU to watch the men's basketball team play Southern Virginia University. It was so fun to see some of my old SVU friends, even though SVU was crushed by BYU.  Due to being tired we only stayed about hour but it was so nice to get out of the house and I'm glad Sean's Dad was able to take me.

Thursday was interesting as it started with an appointment with the Dr Kawa. Dr Kawa talked to me about the Ph study and about what he thought was going on. He said that he thought the acid reflux was a secondary condition to the SMA syndrome. While I was sitting in his office, Dr Kawa, decided to call Dr Puegh and they discussed what the next step of action would be. Boy do I wish I could have listened in on that conversation! Dr Kawa came back and told me that they wanted me to have a CT Angiogram completed so they could look at the agle of the SMA and Aorta. The biggest reason for running all these extra tests was due to the fact that Dr Puegh didn't believe Dr Kawa's diagnosis. So off I went to have this test done.

I had I scheduled to be done on Friday but since I am allergic to iodine the hospital wouldn't allow me to do it with out being pre medicated first. After trying to get the prescriptions I ended up having to reschedule the test for Monday. It wasn't ideal but it turned out ok in the long run as I didn't have to spend the whole weekend worring about the results. 

On Sunday, my brother Joseph, his wife Carrie and their son Aaron, brought Maia back from my parents. It was so good to see her! I was so glad/grateful they were willing to bring her and it was very nice to have them visit. They stayed for dinner and then headed out to hang with some friends. 

Monday morning my test was scheduled for around 8. I went in and it only took them about 10 minuets to actually do the test. It was a pretty easy which was nice but when they pushed the iodine boy did that burn a little and make me dizzy. Luckily that didn't last very long. I don't have an anaphylactic reaction to iodine it makes me have flu like symptoms. The tech told me to go home and drink 8-10 glasses of water and I had to chuckle because that just doesn't work for me. It all tends to come back up.

Once I got home, my brother and his wife came to hang out and play some card games, while my mother in law went to her appointments. Unfortunately it didn't take too long before I started not feeling to well due to the iodine. It made me pretty dizzy and light headed. Joseph and Carrie left around two and once they left and Kassia was asleep I crashed. 

Tuesday was a little rough due to feeling nauseous and vomiting a ton and having to take care of Maia again. Plus I was nervous about the test results and Sean flying the next day.

On Wednesday morning Sean flew in and boy was I excited to see him! I went to go pick him up with Maia and Sean's dad. It was a bit of a rough trip back from the airport as I felt so nauseous and on top of that, Maia threw up about 10 minuets away from home then, the minuet I got out of the car, I threw up. Luckily Sean was there to help with Maia. 

Later that afternoon I had an appointment scheduled with Dr Puegh to go over my test results and to talk about my options. I was pretty nervous as it could mean possible surgery or not knowing what next to do. While I was there I felt miserable and it didn't help that Dr Puegh said that there wasn't anything he could do for me except a fundolocation. He said the test came back normal and that the only going wrong with me was some acid reflux. I felt a little defeated. I was miserable and all he could say is that either I needed a useless surgery or that I needed to go to the mayo clinic or see a dr at the university of Utah. After we left, I just cried. Poor Sean got the brunt end of it but he was such a trooper. Once we got home, I didn't want to talk to anyone, I was miserable so I crashed down stairs for the rest of the night. Hoping the next day would be better. 

Bath time with Nona and Aunt Mel

My Mother was so wonderful to come down and pick me up from the hospital. She was a big help with the girls and it dawned on me that the whole time she was here, I didn't take any pictures until she was helping the girls take a bath. Mel also came and helped a bit and this was one of the nights.

 

This was the first time Maia and Kassia took a bath together. The first of many :)

 

4 months old

This little cutie is now four months old and is starting to wake up to her world around her. She has started to roll from her back to her stomach and likes to be moving. She is truly a sweet baby and likes to snuggle. She is fairly alert and likes to watch her sister run around. She is a really good sleeper and we couldn't have been blessed with an easier going baby.

I'm so in love with this little face!

Kassia's visit

Sean was so amazing and on Saturday he kindly brought Maia and Kassia over to visit me. He brought them over individually so that I could give them some good attention. Here are a few pictures from Kassia's visit. 

Sweet Sunday family time

I am so very blessed to have so many friends and family members around me. Today I was visited by my best friend from high school, Sabrina. It was so good to catch up with her and it was really nice to have the company too. After she left Kathy, grandma Gottfredson, Mel, Maia and Kassia, came to visit. Even though it was bedtime the girls did great and we had such a nice visit! 

Kassia chilled with me on the bed. 

Then Maia and I made funny faces in the camera :)

I feel my saviors love

To I got to experience something very wonderful. It's Sunday and I'm still in the hospital. I was thinking that it would be another Sunday without being able to partake of the sacrament. I was listening to the Mormon tabernacle choir this morning, when I got a knock on my door and it was a gal who aske I would like to have the sacrament brought to me. I was a bit surprised but at the same time very grateful. They came in and introduced themselves and then set about passing the sacrament to me. They blessed the bread and then the water. I have to say they brought such a beautiful spirit into my room. It was exactly what I needed today. It helped me to remember all the blessings that I have been given. I know that things are tough right now and that we still don't have an answer said to why I'm throwing up but I know that I am loved, that my savior loves me and that my Heavenly Father loves me. I have not been forgotten, I am not alone, this is a trial in my life but it doesn't diminish my worth. I am so grateful for the care I have been recieving and I understand how truly blessed I am. Living where and when I do, I have been given so much and I blessed to be in a country with such medicine available. I know that I won't be sick forever and I hold on to that and know I have been and will continue to be very very blessed. 

After the people left my room, this song popped into my head and I think it sums up how I am feeling right now:

1. I feel my Savior's love In all the world around me. His Spirit warms my soul Through ev'rything I see. 2. I feel my Savior's love; Its gentleness enfolds me, And when I kneel to pray, My heart is filled with peace. 3. I feel my Savior's love And know that he will bless me. I offer him my heart; My shepherd he will be. 4. I'll share my Savior's love By serving others freely. In serving I am blessed. In giving I receive. Chorus He knows I will follow him, Give all my life to him. I feel my Savior's love, The love he freely gives me.

Waking up

The next few hours were quite a blur. Unfortunately, due to my current state, I don't handle general anesthesia very well. It really knocks me out. I remember I was starting to wake up in the recovery room and I could here the people saying my name but I couldn't respond to them. I would try but nothing would come out. I remember one of the nurses saying they couldn't figure out why I wasn't waking up and that this was becoming one expensive nap. Luckily I was able to wake up enough that they took me back to my room where for the next 6 hours all I really remember is people yelling at me to get me to wake up.

Ok so maybe they weren't really yelling but it felt like they were. I guess, Dr Puegh wanted me up sitting on the edge of the bed by 6:00 pm and walking the hall by 8. But considering I couldn't even wake up till about 8 and they didn't get me sitting up till 10, the nurse threw the drs orders out the window. They did make me get up at 1 am to use the bathroom, unfortunately my legs didn't really want to support me so I ended up having to use a camod. Not the finest moment of my life but it sure beat using a bed pan. 

Once I started to wake up more fully I realized that my stomach was a bit on the sore side. I was lucky that I wasn't too painful but my shoulders hurt from the air that they pump into my stomach to do the surgery. Luckily I didn't need to have too much pain medicine either. 

That morning I was sitting up and in a pretty good mood, Dr Puegh came in and said that he wanted me to try eating and to see how it would go. I was put on a liquid diet and ordered some jello and chicken broth. I was hopeful that the gallbladder was the problem and that I would be able to keep my food down. Unfortunately, that was not the case and I ended up throwing up everything that I was trying to eat. The next time Dr Puegh saw me, he was a bit disappointed that taking out the gallbladder didn't solve my problem. He still didn't think it was the SMAS causing the vomiting so he suggested that I have my esophagus checked and to rule out GERD (gastric reflux disease), I would have these tests done on Monday when I had the J tube placed. They wanted me to keep trying to eat as well as they kept me on the TPN. Since it was Saturday, I was going to have to wait through the weekend at the hospital to have all the procedures done on Monday. 

I was blessed to have some very nice visitors on Saturday and on Sunday. It really did help pass the time. 

American Fork hospital.

Since Monday night I have been in the American Fork Hospital in Utah. I came in on Monday because I was having a lot of chest pain and I was throwing up a lot more. I came to realize also at I was a bit on the dehydrated side of things. Over 4 hours they gave me 2000 ml of Iv fluids and then a 100 ml/h after that, i didn't have to pee till like noon the next morning. That definitely showed me that I had become fairly dehydrated. Tuesday morning I saw Dr. Kawa (my GI dr) and he said that he wanted me to have an MRI and a chest X-ray done. So off I went to do that. The MRI want too bad but I I have to say it was a bit noisy and if felt like it was frying my insides. Luckily after that test was able to go back to my room to rest. That afternoon, they finally started me back on tpn which was nice to get some nutrience going again. 

I'm not a big fan of sleeping in a hospital as, due to policy, the nurses and nurse assistants don't allow you with there constant checking of vitatals and running medicine or the Iv machines go off or they have to give you medicine. It always seams to me that the minuet you start to drift off to sleep, someone comes in. Such is life in a hospital.

Wednesday morning, at 5 in the morning, the nurse came in to draw my blood and asked me if I had ever had an MRI before. Said I hadn't and the asked her if my results had come back she said they had and then said she couldn't tell me anything. She then proceeded to tell me that she would be interested to see what they do with me. At that point I wished she wouldn't have said that because that sent my mind racing! Of course after that I couldn't sleep at all. I was wondering what she had ment by it and everything. I was thinking maybe it showed something and maybe it didn't. Then I was just frustrated with the whole situation. Luckily at 7:30 in the morning dr Kawa called me and told me what the MRI had shown. He told me that there was a narrowing between two arteries that could be putting pressure on my duodenum. It is called Superior mesenteric artery (SMA) syndrome. Dr Kawa also told me that I would be visited by the surgeon that morning to disscus my options. It was such a relief to finally have something! 

At around 9:30 the surgeon came and started talking to me about what was going on. He wanted to know about my symptoms and about my whole history. He then started talking about my gallbladder and how it would have to be removed. He then went on to talk about the sma and how that was usually treated. The surgeon said that he really didn't think that it was the sma but it was probably mostly my gallbladder and that my gallbladder would need to come out. My head was spinning allittle at that point because it felt like the gallbladder thing came out of left field. Dr Phuegh, the sergeon, said he would like a test done on my gallbladder to see how it sea how it was functioning. So later on that afternoon I was taken to radiology to have what is called a hydra scan done. They enjected a small a out of radio active material into my veins which they said would be picked up by my liver and then would fill up my gallbladder. I would then have to lay on a table while a machine would then pick up the radio active signals and see how quickly the gallbladder filled up. They then gave me some medication that would cause my gallbladder to release the bile and empty. I was a so tired that I actually fell asleep through part of scan but I remember waking up and thinking that the pictures didn't change at all for the time that I fell asleep and woke up. It was cool because I could see the imaging results from where I was laying on the table. 

Me waiting for the scan to start. 

Once I got back to the room, I was again pretty tired so I tried to get a nap. Later that day, dr Kawa came in and explained that my gallbladder was not functioning well at all. Normally within an hour the galbladder should empty 50-75% of its content but that mine only emptied 3.5%. It was definitely going to need to be taken out. Dr Kawa at that time also said that he didn't think that the gallbladder was 100% what was causing my vomiting. He said he still thought that the SMA could be involved but he would talk to the surgeon and we would go from there. 

This shows all my Iv fluids and stumach pump. They were pumping my stomach to keep me from throwing up the acid in my stomach, which is the red lidded container hooked too the wall. There are three bags hanging. The yellow one is called tpn which is what I receive my nutrience through. The one that looks like milk is called lipids, it goes with the tpn. And then the last clear bag is regular saline solution. 

All the cords running to and from me.

On Wednesday, Brit brought Maia and kassia to visit me. It was soon good to see them. That has to be one of the hardest things about beeing in the hospital is not being around my girls. I know I'm getting the care I need right now so that I will be able to care for them soon too but it is still hard.

On Thursday Brit also brought the kiddos to see me. Here kassia is just hanging out with me on my lap.

While Maia chilled next to me. 

Dr. Puegh felt that it wasn't  the sma but he wanted to look at all of the imaging tests at I had had done. On Wednesday we had requested them from OSU and they said that hey would send them out that day. They would t let me have Sean come and pick them up so since they said they could over night them I didn't press the issue. Well the ended up not coming in on Thursday and Friday morning we found out that they had sent them ground and they wouldn't get here till the 11th. Let's just say dr Puegh was not a happy camper and he let OSU know that. 

So Friday, early afternoon, Dr Puegh had me do another upper gi series. It's where they push a contrast dye into your stomach and then watch as it travels through the intestines. I was not surprised when they said that it came back looking normal. So Dr Puegh said that he was confident it was just my gallbladder and sent me back to my room to prep for surgery.

When I got back to my room Sean was there which was the best thing of all. It was a such a relief to see him. He was supposed to fly in the night before but his flight ended up being delayed to the point that he would have missed his connecting flight and consequently they rescheduled his flight for the next morning. I was glad he finally was there. 

My nurse, Nick was really funny and helpful through the day and in getting me ready for surgery. It was nice to have some humor before going to be sliced open. He came in and told me that the surgery department needed me to get naked under my hospital gown as quickly as possible because they were coming down to get me. Not too much longer after that they came in and started wheeling me over to the surgery wing. 

Once we got there, they took me to a prep area and started asking me all sorts of questions. Most of them routine. The anastesiologist was really really nice and it was a bit of a comfort to know that I was in good hands. They almost had me all ready then they realized that they didn't have a negative pregnancy test on record. So I had to take care of that, even though I assured them it would be considered an immaculate conception if it came back positive. Of couse it came back negative but it was a good joke while it lasted. Dr Puegh then came to see me right before the surgery assured Sean and I that everything should go seamlessly. After I had signed my concent forms, the anastesiologist gave me something that made the room spin a little then off we went to the OR room. The last thing I remember is getting on the table, they took my arm and strapped it down, then I remember them putting oxygen on my face and I was gone.