I had a very interesting experience this evening. I was asked to go dress the body of a sister in our ward who passed away over the weekend. I never met her -- she lived in a nursing home, and was very ill -- but she lived to be 94. She was a tiny little thing, which helped a lot.
When the Bishop first asked me to go I wasn't so sure about it. Of course I said yes, because it needs to be done, and I'm able to do it, so I should do it. But I was a little apprehensive. But really, it was just such a simple but neat experience.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
where to begin...
Last weekend -- March 6-8 we spent in Dubuque. My brother Brian had his high school musical that weekend, and we drove 3 hours to see it! They did a really nice job on The Music Man. I was very impressed. The first night we were there, however, Dallin & I had a very nice dinner date to celebrate our 6 years of marriage. Our anniversary was on the 8th. Saturday morning my mother and I went to a gardening class offered by the ISU Extension office in Dubuque. A lot of the lectures went over our heads, but we learned a little bit about gardening. This is my first year with a yard, and I'm determined to grow something this year! Before going to the gardening class however, I was hit hard with a sharp pain right under my rib cage. I honestly didn't think anything of it because I've similar symptoms before and they always seemed to be due to constipation or something. I also had an upset stomach. But that all went away before we had to leave for our class, so I didn't think anything about it. I figured I had just eaten something the night before that didn't agree with me. Not surprising with you're pregnant.
Tuesday evening Dallin & I bought a new dishwasher -- yippee! I will have to get pictures later. I didn't remember to charge my camera battery before the guy came in to install it on Thursday. Thursday night will always be burned into my brain...I woke up around 12:30 or so feeling just uncomfortable. Again I thought it was just constipation. I hadn't really eaten very well that day, or had much water to drink, so I tried to just walk off the pain, go to the bathroom, etc. Well, I went to the bathroom. And the pain didn't go away. In fact, as the night went on, it got much worse. To top it off both children decided they needed to be up too, and I think both of them spent part of the night in our bed. I went out on the couch and watched some 3:30am news to try to get my body to relax enough to get to sleep. I dozed for a few minutes here and there, but never really had a good sleep. by 5:30am I called my OB's office. The answering service paged the doctor on call. An hour later he had not called me back. So I had him paged again. This time he called me and told me to try to take some Tums or Tylenol, but if I thought there was a real problem to go to the ER. Well, I tried the Tums. I felt nauseas the moment they were in my mouth. I took some Tylenol, but threw those up an hour later. By this time I had emptied my stomach and you can imagine how pleasent that is to throw up on an empty stomach! Dallin left for work about 7:00 Friday morning, and he called me at 7:30 to see how I was doing. I told him he needed to come home. I couldn't stand up, I couldn't walk, I couldn't sit. etc. A little before 10:00am I told Dallin this was not okay, and that I needed to get to the hospital. They checked me into the OB floor at the hospital around 10:30. I told the same story to everyone who came to see me that day! The OB on call that day was Dr. Olson. And now I know why everyone loves her. She is the only female OB in town, but besides that, she was fanstastic. It's always nice to have a doctor who knows what it's like to be pregnant.
As soon as she found out where my pain was -- right under the right side of my rib cage -- and that I was in my 3rd pregnancy, she gave a tenative diagnosis immediately. She said it was either a gastrinal problem or my gallbladder. She ordered an ultrasound for me -- and let me tell you, that was the most painful ultrasound I have ever had! I will no longer complain about needing a full bladder for an ultrasound again! When Dr. Olson came to see me she said that the ultrasound showed that I had several gall stones in my gallbladder, and that it looked inflamed and possibly infected. She discussed the case with the surgeon, and he agreed with her diagnosis. So I was admitted the hospital Friday afternoon, and they gave me some Morphine for the pain. I got the little button I could push for my own pain control. That is the most blessed thing ever! Not only did it give almost instant relief, but the machine doesn't allow you to OD. Nice. But I gotta tell ya, that Morphine gave me some pretty funky dreams! They also put me on some antibiotics Saturday night because my white cell count was high.
Saturday morning about 11:30 I went into the OR for my surgery to remove my gallbladder. I spent the rest of the day and 1/2 of Sunday in the hospital. I'm now at home feeling better than I did yesterday, and TONS better than I did on Thursday! The surgeon said my gallbladder was definitely infected. I am so glad we got it taken care of now! My diet will need to change a little bit. Not too many greasy foods like hamburgers, pizza, french fries, but I think I can handle that! I'm just glad that the baby's okay, I'm okay, and I'm on the way to a great recovery!
And as pathetic as it may sound the biggest downer for me during the whole weekend was that I missed the awesome Friday deals at the local grocery store...
Tuesday evening Dallin & I bought a new dishwasher -- yippee! I will have to get pictures later. I didn't remember to charge my camera battery before the guy came in to install it on Thursday. Thursday night will always be burned into my brain...I woke up around 12:30 or so feeling just uncomfortable. Again I thought it was just constipation. I hadn't really eaten very well that day, or had much water to drink, so I tried to just walk off the pain, go to the bathroom, etc. Well, I went to the bathroom. And the pain didn't go away. In fact, as the night went on, it got much worse. To top it off both children decided they needed to be up too, and I think both of them spent part of the night in our bed. I went out on the couch and watched some 3:30am news to try to get my body to relax enough to get to sleep. I dozed for a few minutes here and there, but never really had a good sleep. by 5:30am I called my OB's office. The answering service paged the doctor on call. An hour later he had not called me back. So I had him paged again. This time he called me and told me to try to take some Tums or Tylenol, but if I thought there was a real problem to go to the ER. Well, I tried the Tums. I felt nauseas the moment they were in my mouth. I took some Tylenol, but threw those up an hour later. By this time I had emptied my stomach and you can imagine how pleasent that is to throw up on an empty stomach! Dallin left for work about 7:00 Friday morning, and he called me at 7:30 to see how I was doing. I told him he needed to come home. I couldn't stand up, I couldn't walk, I couldn't sit. etc. A little before 10:00am I told Dallin this was not okay, and that I needed to get to the hospital. They checked me into the OB floor at the hospital around 10:30. I told the same story to everyone who came to see me that day! The OB on call that day was Dr. Olson. And now I know why everyone loves her. She is the only female OB in town, but besides that, she was fanstastic. It's always nice to have a doctor who knows what it's like to be pregnant.
As soon as she found out where my pain was -- right under the right side of my rib cage -- and that I was in my 3rd pregnancy, she gave a tenative diagnosis immediately. She said it was either a gastrinal problem or my gallbladder. She ordered an ultrasound for me -- and let me tell you, that was the most painful ultrasound I have ever had! I will no longer complain about needing a full bladder for an ultrasound again! When Dr. Olson came to see me she said that the ultrasound showed that I had several gall stones in my gallbladder, and that it looked inflamed and possibly infected. She discussed the case with the surgeon, and he agreed with her diagnosis. So I was admitted the hospital Friday afternoon, and they gave me some Morphine for the pain. I got the little button I could push for my own pain control. That is the most blessed thing ever! Not only did it give almost instant relief, but the machine doesn't allow you to OD. Nice. But I gotta tell ya, that Morphine gave me some pretty funky dreams! They also put me on some antibiotics Saturday night because my white cell count was high.
Saturday morning about 11:30 I went into the OR for my surgery to remove my gallbladder. I spent the rest of the day and 1/2 of Sunday in the hospital. I'm now at home feeling better than I did yesterday, and TONS better than I did on Thursday! The surgeon said my gallbladder was definitely infected. I am so glad we got it taken care of now! My diet will need to change a little bit. Not too many greasy foods like hamburgers, pizza, french fries, but I think I can handle that! I'm just glad that the baby's okay, I'm okay, and I'm on the way to a great recovery!
And as pathetic as it may sound the biggest downer for me during the whole weekend was that I missed the awesome Friday deals at the local grocery store...
Sunday, March 1, 2009
my ah-hah moment today
My mom posted a couple weeks ago about how she had an ah-hah moment during Primary that day. I had mine today. I need to give a little bit of background here. Our Primary theme this year is My Eternal Family. My dilemma in teaching this this year was that in my tiny primary -- only 9 active families represented in the primary -- there are only about 3 or 4 who have the ideal family with active member parents married in the temple and kids BIC, etc. I'm not not sure about this, but I'm pretty sure that's an interesting ratio compared to larger primaries. Anyway, so what we've been concentrating on is the pattern of the family that we are to follow. I taught a lesson using the analogy from Elder Holland HERE. I used my own examples of making dresses using patterns and how hard it was with the pattern, and the dresses are no where near perfect, but they would have turned out much worse if I didn't use a pattern. Heavenly Father has given us patterns and we find them in the scriptures, in the Church magazines & General Conference, and our main pattern this year is the Family Proclamation. So every Sharing Time that I teach I try to point out the pattern we are being taught.
Admittedly, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare this lesson. I was filling in for my counselor whose mother died last weekend. I didn't read through my scripture passages too closely because I thought I knew the stories and the lessons in there.
Today I taught about the responsibility of fathers. I had several pairs of Dallin's shoes and we talked about all the different responsibilities he and other fathers fulfill wearing their various shoes. We also read parts of 1 Nephi 1 & 2 and talked about Lehi as a father. With Jr. Primary we talked about how fathers are the leaders of the family, and that they teach the family, provide for, and protect the family. Pretty basic stuff. It wasn't until I was teaching Sr. Primary that I got my ah-hah moment. I realized the obvious pattern. When Jeruselam was in danger of destruction Lehi went and prayed for his people & his family -- his stewardship -- then he received instruction for his family, and then he lead his family. When Nephi's bow broke and he had to make a new one he went to his father -- the patriarch of the family -- and Lehi again prayed, received instruction, and then led (or told) Nephi where to find food.
So the pattern is: 1. righteous fathers pray for their families, 2. they receive instruction, 3. they lead their families. It was awesome. And one of those, "Duh, why didn't I figure this out before?" moments.
Admittedly, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare this lesson. I was filling in for my counselor whose mother died last weekend. I didn't read through my scripture passages too closely because I thought I knew the stories and the lessons in there.
Today I taught about the responsibility of fathers. I had several pairs of Dallin's shoes and we talked about all the different responsibilities he and other fathers fulfill wearing their various shoes. We also read parts of 1 Nephi 1 & 2 and talked about Lehi as a father. With Jr. Primary we talked about how fathers are the leaders of the family, and that they teach the family, provide for, and protect the family. Pretty basic stuff. It wasn't until I was teaching Sr. Primary that I got my ah-hah moment. I realized the obvious pattern. When Jeruselam was in danger of destruction Lehi went and prayed for his people & his family -- his stewardship -- then he received instruction for his family, and then he lead his family. When Nephi's bow broke and he had to make a new one he went to his father -- the patriarch of the family -- and Lehi again prayed, received instruction, and then led (or told) Nephi where to find food.
So the pattern is: 1. righteous fathers pray for their families, 2. they receive instruction, 3. they lead their families. It was awesome. And one of those, "Duh, why didn't I figure this out before?" moments.
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