Kidney Update

So, Pete had surgery Tuesday morning. When they went to get his stone, it went back up into his kidney.

*sigh*

The anesthesia made him really sick, and kind of made him trip out, I think. I visited him early in the afternoon, and he was just staring at the wall, all hunched over. Me: Pete, how are you doing? Pete: I feel weird. Me: Are you nauseous? Are you in pain? Pete: I feel weird. Me: Can I help you out somehow? Pete: I feel weird.

Quite the productive conversation.

Later he felt better. And now he knows to never do drugs.

Pete will probably feel like crap again today, because he had to go in and get his kidney blasted with sound waves to break up the stone this morning.

When the nurse, named "Loopy" (no joke) was checking Pete in, she asked if we had a living will. I said, "No, but I know what to do if something goes wrong," and made the slit-your-neck motion. Loopy said, "I told my husband he wasn't allowed to die, that I'd keep him around somehow." I'm all, "Like stuff his dead body?" Loopy: I had four little kids. I needed help. Me: "Kids, if you don't behave, you'll have to go sit on Dead Dad."

I really hope this is the last of it. Going to the hospital over and over is getting a little old.

Oh, and if anyone has any money they don't need, feel free to send it my way. Because dang.

Just Can't Get Enough!

A couple of Sundays ago, this happened:

How, you may ask? Pete sat down. Yep. Just plain old sat on Ivy's bed, and the frame broke. Just add it to the list, my dear. Here's a closer look:

We "fixed" it. It's very white trash, but we turned the bed around so you can't tell. (We drilled long boards along the frame on both sides. I should submit it to the website There, I Fixed It.)

That day at church I was joking with a couple of friends about "what's going to break next? a kid's arm?"

...

...I shouldn't have done that.

Because then our cute little Tuna decided to up and croak. This is all I have left of it now:

It was about time, I guess. It should have probably lasted only about 6 years, and it lasted 12 years. My stomach started getting all churny at the thought of having a car payment again. Ugh.

But.

Look at Tuna's replacement!

I think this car was especially meant for us. It's a Chevy Cobalt, it has five million buttons in it (including seat warmers-how cool is that?), we got it at a great price at a great rate... I'm still trying to think of a name for it. But our minivan doesn't have a name, so maybe it will be nameless for a while.

In the non-broken side of my life, my parents decided to be all awesome (like they always are) and got me some new trees for my backyard!

I can't wait until they're all big and pretty and giving us lots of shade.

This one has lost a lot of leaves, though, in the insanity we Idahoans call "wind". (If I could, I would seriously dome my whole backyard. Like a big greenhouse or something. Stinking wind. Which blew all five copies of my Sunday paper all over my neighbor's backyard yesterday. Sheesh.)

So, back to the whole "what's going to go wrong next?" You know, besides car wrecks, and sickness, and broken air conditioners, and cameras, and other car deaths, and beds. That's right! The fun hasn't stopped there!

Pete is back in the the hospital today, with his 6th kidney stone. (No matter what/how much he drinks, he will always produce stones. He's just lucky that way.) You can read about his last experience here and here. Pete went in last Thursday, and the doc told Pete to take some drugs and he should pass it on his own. Things seemed fine, until last night, when his pain came back with a vengeance. After a few very frustrating hours at the hospital, and a 2 a.m. call to our urologist, Pete got admitted to the hospital in the wee hours, and he'll be getting surgery tomorrow.

Today I had this song running through my head. (I can't POSSIBLY imagine why. *sigh*)

(P.S. Young Dave Gahan looks like Shia LaBeouf. And 80s dancing is really funny.)

"Ketchup"

When I was little, my mom told us that her brother and dad were...hiking? skiing?...doing some sort of activity, and my grandpa would look back at my uncle, and say, "Catch up, Kurt! Catch up!" To which my uncle replied, "Mustard, Dad, mustard!" I don't know if that story is even true, but I thought it was funny when I was young.

Anyway, I've been tired of feeling all behind on, oh, my LIFE, so I thought I'd highlight some of the things that have been going on in the last little bit.

A few days after Jake's birthday, we went down to Salt Lake to see Lion King, and on to Spanish Fork to see Pete's fam.

The car ride down was uneventful...


So, my sister Kar couldn't go, because she went into labor on the 10th! I mentioned that it was raining a bunch on Jake's birthday. When Karlenn came to get her son after the party, she stepped outside on our wet steps, and slipped and fell on her butt. I felt so bad, at first. But then when I found out she went into labor the next day, I was like, hey, go me! Because my sister was absolutely miserable, and I thought maybe her falling down my stairs started her into labor. And since her baby was done cooking, then labor was a good thing.

My dad, at first, thought he wouldn't be able to go, either, because he was in the hospital on Monday morning (same day as Jake's birthday), with some sort of pancreatic pain. They didn't know what was going on. It was kind of creepy to me to see my dad in the hospital-he's NEVER sick. He'll get a cold, like, once every 5 years. So to go from that to hospital was quite the shock. Turns out, though, that his pain went away, and everything is fine. So he got released Thursday morning, and Thursday night we were in SLC.

It was a little weird to have two family members in the hospital at the same time for two totally unrelated events.

Anyway, my sister Lex and her boyfriend, me and Pete, and my parents all ended up going. We ate at-where else?-Benihana for dinner. YUM! Here's me and my gorgeous sister:

Seriously, she could be a part-time model.

My awesome brother-in-law ended up watching our kids (we owe you one, Fatboy!) during dinner and the show, so for 6+ hours. He even watched some Garfield movie with my kids. What a good sport.

Lion King was AMAZING!!! I totally started crying during the opening scene. I forget how powerful live shows can be. The costumes were incredible. My favorite singer was the lady that played Rafiki, the old monkey. She could do the clicking tongue African language (not sure what it's called-I'm really cultured in that way). I liked the special effects they had, too. Like during the scene of the wildebeest stampede-they started a scroll showing them far away, then moved some people in closer with small wildebeest heads, then some people in closer with bigger heads, then people came in with really big wildebeest heads. It looked so cool. They also had a few more songs added; they were so moving.

Pete and I posed outside after the show the way some of the lion people posed:


And here we all are (me, Pete, Dad, Mom, Lex, Chris):

Thanks, Mom and Dad! It was such a great show!

We stayed in SLC that night, then headed down to Pete's parents' house. We played down there the rest of the weekend. And because I suck, I have no pictures. We watched movies, had a barbecue, slept a ton (except for Ivy, who slept like crap the whole time), and relaxed a lot.

In other "ketchup" news, Brock lost his first tooth!


He didn't even cry. (Jakob screamed and cried with every single tooth, except one.) Now he's wondering when his new tooth is going to come in. I told him drinking milk would help his teeth be strong. I think he's expecting to wake up to a full-grown tooth, though. He looks so grown up!

Well, I still have more to catch up on, but that's all I have time to write about right now. More ketchup later.

Drug-Induced Musings

You know how there are some musicians that take drugs and totally make their best music when high? Well, you're not going to get any genius from me while I'm on pain meds; I mostly just lose my short-term memory and repeat myself a lot and watch the room spin around. Which can be fun, too, I guess. I was going to make this super clever post about my awesome surgery, but the more I think of it in my swooshing head the more it's just not super clever. But I still want to type, so you get a mediocre version of my super witty post. Lucky you! (See? And I said "super" at least three times in the last two sentences. Yay, short term memory!)

First, I realized that I should have explained my surgery; I just kind of threw the news out there. I had what is called uterine prolapse, where the ligaments that typically hold the uterus in place and upright kind of gave up, which was giving me a lot of back pain; the solution was to get a complete hysterectomy. Despite some nausea afterwards, the surgery went well, and hopefully I'll be getting back to normal soon. I can't do any lifting or stretching for about a month, which means no housework like sweeping or vacuuming or laundry. So it's like a vacation. A pretty sucky vacation, but a break of sorts nevertheless.

The anesthesiologist that came in the first time (I saw about three or four of those guys, but I'd better only get charged for one of 'em) was like the McDreamy of my hospital; I swear when he smiled he that little star-thingy (*) by his teeth and it went ping! All of the nurses and doctors were really nice, especially since my surgery got pushed back because of an emergency C-section my doctor had to perform.

They had this thing called Bair Paws; the dressing gown had little tubey things in it, and a tube of warm air connected to it, and it fills the gown with warm air. Oooooh, so nice. I'm going to try to link to a pic of it right here. I've also had these anti-embolism stockings, which have kept my post-surgery cankles in check, and keeps the circulation a-flowing, so my feet are actually warm, and helps with the blood clot chances. Added bonuses there! Oh, and the best part: they had these leg brace looking things, and they alternately fill with air and squeeze your legs a little bit, then let go. Again, for the clotting reason, but it was like a 24-hour leg massage. Me likey. A lot.

I totally stayed up until 2 a.m. Monday night making bags for YW in Excellence, along with hemming these colored cloth things. I did a really crappy job. It was like drunk dialing, but for seamstresses. I don't think I could have done a better job with my current drugged state as I did that night. Which tells you how great of a seamstress I am.

When we were checking in at the hospital, they asked if we wanted to pay upfront. I asked if we could get a discount if we did pay now. We got 20% off. There are a lot of couponers out there that would be so proud of us.

Um, that's all I can think of right now. Maybe when I'm a bit more sober/lucid/coherent I'll come up with something more.