Hooray for 2012!

So as most of you know, 2011 was pretty rough for Dallin and I. On New Year's Eve Dal kissed me at midnight and whispered in my ear, "2012 will be much better for us babe." I was a little hesitant based on reviewing the past year, but I told him I will rely on your faith and optimism, so yes, 2012 will be better for us. And of course my sweet hubby was right, 2012 has been turning out to be a really great year for us so far, and we are determined to keep it a very positive year... yikes, almost 1 month down and 11 more to go, we can do it!

At the end of last year Dallin got a full time LPN job in Price, Utah. Pretty exciting right, well except for the location. Dal took the job and has been working there ever since. Price is 2 hours away and his shift is from 6am to 6pm, do the math, that puts him waking up at 3:50am and driving 2 hours then working a 12-14 hour shift, driving the 2 hours back home, walking in the door to give me a quick good-night kiss and going right to bed to sleep and then wake right up the next morning to do this all over again. He does this about 3-4 times a week. Pretty tiring right? Poor guy, it was really hard for him, and for me, I never saw him awake. So we decided that he would stay in a hotel in Price instead of making the drive everyday so he wouldn't be so tired.

Problem solved. NOT!

So now I really never see him, oh and did I mention that the days he isn't working in Price he is working at the hospital in Mt. Pleasant. I am not a needy wife or anything like that, I just love my hubby and love seeing him and now I never get to see him. It makes for some really lonely nights, but on the other hand, I am getting a lot of things done. hum... Well moral of the story, this is not working out for us for him to be gone all of the time and for him to be driving so much is really dangerous.

We then had an AHA moment and realized, why don't we apply for nursing jobs throughout the state. So he applied to a few jobs in St. George and the Salt Lake areas. A few days later we got a call for an interview at a job in St. George. On the 3 hour drive to St. George we were so excited, saying things like, "this is awesome!", "we are going to move to a warmer climate and move to a place we both have always wanted to live!" and so on. Well Dal was in the interview for a really long time and finally came out with a huge smile on his face. He got the Job! HOORAY! He will be an LPN at the St. George Care and Rehab Center, Full-time. We are moving to St. George. It then clicked, oh my gosh, we have lived in sanpete county for almost all our lives, minus Dal's mission in Philly, of course. All of these frightened thoughts ran through my head, holy crap we are moving, I have to find a new job, we have to find a new place to live, I have to start packing. And then the tears started to flow. Ha in a matter of a couple of hours I went from overly extatic to utterly freaked out and then repeat those emotions a few times back and forth! All I know is that Dal couldn't stop laughing at my crazy emotional rollercoaster. And then I couldn't help but laugh as well because it was quite comical!

Well we decided to go to the temple a few days later to help with the decision of whether to move or not. We walked in the doors and POW! We were smacked with calmness and assurity that this was the right move for us. What a wonderful feeling that was! Needless to say I couldn't help but start to pack right away even though our moving day isn't until February 18th. What? I can't help it I'm so excited!

We went down last Saturday, January 21st and looked at 10 different apts/condos/townhomes. We loved the very first one we went to and went back after looking at all of the others and knew it was the one for us. So right then and there we signed the contract and wala! we have the cutest 3 bedroom, two-story townhome ever! Now that we have a place, on with the packing. :)

Dal will begin his new job this week, so until February 18th he will be driving down to St. George every week and will stay with his cousins that live there for a few days and then driving back to stay with me and help me pack for a few days. (Thank You TeriLynn and JB for letting Dal stay with you until we move down there!) So the next few weeks will be a little rough, but will be much worth it after the 18th when we will be living in our townhouse together!

We cannot wait for our St. George adventure to begin!

Look out sun, here we come!! :)

What is Chiari Malformation?

I guess I should let people know what Chiari Malformation is since I have and will be babbling on about it.

I have been struggling with severe headaches for a year, and for about 3 months I was suffering with a whole bunch of other symptoms from the Chiari. I decided to finally go to the doctor and see what was going on when I smartened up and realized that it wasn't normal to have headaches 24/7, pass out randomly, lose feeling in my hands and arms, not be able to lift a 1/4 gallon of milk to pour me a glass and when I luckily got the glass poured how when I went to take a sip I would drop the glass everytime and cried as I watched it shatter to the floor and how I couldn't drive anymore because when I went to look to the left then look to the right I saw only blurriness, whoops, I guess that could have been quite dangerous! But I guess none of that is normal so I finally listened to my husband's wisdom, (instead of ignoring it like I have for the past couple months regarding this) and I went to the doctor and she sent me right away for an MRI of my brain and of my neck. The very next day my doctor informed me that I had Chiari Malformation and that she was sending me to a Neurosurgeon right away because it is quite severe and needs to be fixed with surgery!

Surgery? Yikes! No one likes to hear that word, especially not when it's regarding your brain and your head. It was so hard to hear that, not to mention that she called when Dal was gone to Wal-Mart to do the grocery shopping for the month, also not to mention that he forgot his cell phone at home. So here I am with this bad news and my hubby is somewhere in that dreadful Wal-Mart. So I decided to call Wal-Mart and have him paged. What, like you wouldn't in a situation like this? Well I called them and could barely get out that I needed my hubby ASAP, through all my loud sobs. I finally reached him and got him home soon after to tell him the news, that was quite hard to tell Dal, who has been through 18 brain surgeries himself, that I have a brain malformation and that I now need surgery. Let's just say that he didn't take it very well, but he was very strong and supportive to me.

We met with Dr. Peterson on November 3rd to hear the verdict. The results: surgery on November 28th. So we got to work to prep for Christmas and for the surgery, which you can read about in the blurb below.

So a little about Dr. Peterson, he is a top Neuro-Surgeon in Utah and specializes in Chiari Malformation surgery, so that was helpful in calming me down. He is a great surgeon, he just has a funny bedside manner where he seems to think everything is funny and that it relates to something else.

Example

 Me: "How long will the recovery be after surgery?"

Dr. Peterson: "Funny you should ask that." (giggling)

Me thinking to myself: (stress mode) what do you mean funny I should ask that? That's a normal question anyone going into surgery would want to know. Right? and why are you laughing about this?

Dr. Peterson: Well this one patient I had as soon as he woke up out of surgery he felt better instantly. I also had this patient, let's see, oh about 10 years ago, and it took her like 2 years to feel better. Man that's a long time don't you think? (He went on for 10 minutes about his previous pt. experiences)

Me thinking to myself again: did he really just ask that? What is this guy's problem, I just want to know how long I should plan on recovery time. Is he really still laughing about this? I look over and Dal is just calm as can be and soaking in everything he says, huh, must be a nurse thing.

Needless to say, I did not get a direct response to any of my questions, which is quite frustrating. But that is the flaw to our sweet Dr. Peterson, other than laughing off questions and rambling on with very long stories, he is a very brilliant surgeon and he did an excellent job with my surgery.

It has been 5 weeks since the surgery and so far, not too bad. I had to take 3 1/2 weeks off of work to recover and now I am back and trying my darndest to make it through a full day. All of my symptoms are gone, except the headaches, I seem to not be able to fight them off, I tried asking my Dr. how long I would have them for and once again, no answer. From studying about it, it can take up to a few weeks to a few years. I have passed the few weeks, and pray that it doesn't last a few years. I guess I am starting to get immune to my headaches since I have had them for over a year, come to think of it, I can't really remember what it's like to not have my head pounding all day! Hum... Well all in all, I am very grateful I had the surgery done, it helped so much and I am so glad that I can remember things now, (well mostly, haha) and am so glad that I am not breaking anymore dishes :) I am still not able to drive farther than a block, but I will get there. I'm grateful the surgery went well and that Dr. Peterson performed it to perfection. As for now I am just trying to get used to this huge incision and bald spot on the back of my head. Thank you to everyone who gifted me cute hats to cover up the baldness, I am very grateful I can cover up that embarrassing hair cut! So glad I have way cute hats to be stylish with for the winter!

Thank you everyone for all of your thoughts, prayers, cards, hats, flowers, meals, etc. Thank you to mom, and Rach for babysitting me so Dal could go to work. It all has helped us so much!

Most of all, thank you to my sweet hubby who has done the grocery shopping for the past 4 months, who washed my hair in the sink for the past month, for sending embarrassing head photos of me to family and friends, who made us meals for the past month, who took care of me and gave me my meds, who slept with me in my hospital bed so I wasn't lonesome, and for never leaving my side and supporting me through it all! Love you pook!

Here is a link that is quite informational about Chiari Malformation, Hope this helps!

http://www.conquerchiari.org/Chiari%20Overview%202010.pdf

Some Updates

Am I way behind or what? I think I have a slight excuse because of my head surgery, but then it has turned into complete blogger laziness!
Here are some updates...
November was quite busy for us. It included many doctor's visits, getting everything prepped before surgery, getting all of our Christmas shopping done since I would be out of commission all of December, lots of crafting and a remodel.

Crafts, crafts and more crafts!
I realized that I love crafts and making them, but that I really don't have that many, so it resulted in me needing to make more!  I took lots of pictures to prove that I actually made them myself. I love how they all turned out!

Fall Wreath

 I find this wreath idea on www.pinterest.com and really love how it turned out!

I really love wreaths but they are too expensive to buy so I made a fall and Christmas wreath. The fall wreath cost about $5 to make. The Christmas wreath was a little more, but it is really cute so it was worth it. But both wreaths cost way less to make than to buy.

Christmas Wreath

 I love my Christmas Wreath!

I also made some snowflake ornaments out of toilet paper rolls

 I think they turned out pretty cute and added something different to the tree.

Mom gave me like a hundred empty picture frames and I am figuring out fun things to do with them, I found this cute Christmas wording, bought lots of green buttons and got to work.

Dal was obviously jealous of all of my crafting fun and he decided to make a craft himself out of none other than his favorite thing, mountain dew cans!

And low and behold our Tree Star! He did a great job and it hung atop our Christmas tree all month. He was so proud of himself, and I am proud of him as well. It made for a funny story every time someone came to our home, they looked at our tree and admired that red and green star shining atop of it. It's pretty good huh?

As you can tell we had a fun month full of crafts!

For some reason since I was getting all crafty, I decided we needed a change in our apt and I made Dallin rearrange every single piece of furniture in our apartment! We switched all the rooms up and I am really happy with the remodel! He is so patient and is the best hubby to help me with my crazy OCD antics. Can you believe we remodeled our whole apt the week before my surgery, I just thought we needed something else on our plate to do. : ) (I will upload pictures soon)

We went up the mountain with Jake and Becca and their kids on the 22nd to cut down our Christmas tree and we found the perfect tree! That night we put it up and packed for Thanksgiving.

We spent Thanksgiving with Dallin's family in Gunnison from the 23-26. We played lots of games and ate lots of yummy foods.

We spent the 27th doing the last preps for surgery the next morning. We visited our friends Braden and Lyndsey Hansen so we could meet their new baby girl, Elle. Then we spent that night at Kellen and Desirae's house in Lehi. They were so kind to let us stay at their house so we only had to drive 30 mins to the hospital for surgery, otherwise if we would have stayed home we would have had to wake up at 6am to drive 2 hours to the hospital. Thank you Kel and Des, it helped a lot!

So we had almost everything decorated for Christmas, all of our Christmas shopping done, and were ready to embark on a long recovery from surgery. Thank you Dallin for putting up with me and for helping me prep the house for Christmas, etc! Now we were ready, gulp, for surgery. Well, I guess as ready as you could be.

I had surgery on November 28th for my Chiari Malformation. The surgery was scheduled for 11:30am. Dal and I woke up, he ate breakfast, I couldn't because I was instructed to eat my last snack and drink at 11pm the night before, and we drove to the hospital. We arrived on time and filled out all the paper work and they took me right back and said things were running smooth and on time, we couldn't believe that part! The nurse hooked me up to the I.V. and said the anesthetist will be in shortly, so we sat patiently and waited. Mom and Dad arrived just shortly after and then an hour passed, then another. So much for on time and waiting shortly for the anesthetist. There was a complication with the surgery before mine, and the patient's 2 hour surgery turned into a 6 hour surgery which resulted in me starving and peeing like crazy while waiting for several hours for my turn. We all 4 watched many episodes of Friend's and of course my favorite The Ellen Degeneres Show in this tiny little room. I had gone through 1 1/2 bags of I.V., hence all the peeing. I didn't go into surgery until 6:30pm, and by this time I couldn't wait, I was so tired and hungry from waiting all day that I zonked out I think before they even gave me any medicine. I mean usually you can remember that the anesthetist asks you to count down from 10, all I can remember is being wheeled into the operating room and my nurses talked to me about Twilight and then boom, nothing else til I saw my cute hubby waiting for me in I.C.U. My surgery was 4 hours long and so it was after 10:30pm when I got out. Thank you mom and dad for waiting All Day with me and for keeping Dallin company while I was in surgery!

Warning! The following pictures can be graphic!

My hair was crazy and that red stuff isn't hair dye, it's blood, gross!

 

So obviously the picture above is of the back of my head where the big incision took place. 

The picture below is of one of the little wholes created by a head crown that they put into my head to hold it in place during surgery, there are about 5 holes that I found all over my head from where the crown was.

 This is what I woke up to after surgery, blood all over my head, 

they didn't prep me for that, it kinda freaked me out.

I'll update the rest tomorrow :)