Utah Trip

While we were in Utah one of the days we went to Liberty Park in Salt Lake and went to the Aviary, went on some of the rides they had there, and fed the geese at the park.

Below are some of the rides we went on. We also went on the ferris wheel that was seen in the movie Charly.

We also had lunch at Moochies, as seen on The Food Network for their Philly Cheesesteaks and Meatball Subs. Camryn loved watching Uncle Tanner try to eat this massive 12" meatball sub. "Messy Tanner!" she kept saying.

We had a great time with Merrick's family and we miss you guys already!

Gallstones

For the past 6+ months I've had back pain in one specific spot- the middle right of my back. Merrick tried buying me a massage chair for Christmas, I went to a doctor who recommended me to do physical therapy, and I've had good days and bad days with that spot. Sometimes it's been so bad that the only thing that helped was to take motrin and go to bed. In the morning I would feel better. A couple months ago I started noticing tenderness in my abdomen parallel to where the pain was in my back, whenever I had these attacks. This started to worry me but it was pretty mild most of the time.

Last Friday night I started to feel the familiar pain but this time it was really intense in my back and in my abdomen. It kept getting worse as the night went on and finally at about 10pm I told Merrick I wasn't going to be able to sleep. We called our hometeacher and he stayed at the house with the sleeping kids and we went to the E.R. They gave me morphine for the pain, which was getting to be as uncomfortable as being in labor. Then they did some blood tests and an ultrasound and found gallstones in my gallbladder. I was sent home with some drugs hoping that the pain would be okay until I could see a surgeon on Monday. I felt tender the next day but didn't need any medicine again until I had another attack Sunday night but the medicine helped.

On Monday I saw a surgeon and he said I needed to have my gallbladder removed and it was scheduled for Wednesday. I felt okay most of the time but eliminated all dairy and fatty foods until my surgery just in case.

On Wednesday I went in for my surgery. I was put under general anesthesia, which wasn't too scary. They did the surgery laparoscopically, meaning they used a camera and a light and four small incisions to remove it, instead of making one major cut. Immediately upon waking up I noticed the pain in my back was gone. Hooray! I rested and slept off and on for an hour and then was sent to my regular room to see Merrick. When I got there the nurse asked me to take a deep breath and it hurt really bad. I wasn't expecting it to be that bad so they quickly gave me some morphine to help mask the pain. It took a few hours before I felt like getting up. I tried going to the bathroom and it was very painful to sit up and I kept thinking to myself - How am I supposed to go home today? But after a few hours it didn't hurt as much to sit up and I was able to go home.

The first two days home were hard, but I increased my activity gradually. Now it's been 4 days since my surgery and I'm just taking ibuprofen for the pain instead of the heavy drugs, which makes me much less loopy and drowsy. I can get up and walk around although my stomach is still tender so I'm very careful. I'm not allowed to lift anything more than 15 lbs for 2 weeks but the kids have been good about climbing up on the couch and sitting next to me instead of needing to be carried around all the time. Also, I'm being careful what I eat so that I don't put a lot of bile into my intestines. No greasy food, very little dairy, and no sweets for now.

Well that's what I've been up to, plus a whole lot of laying around recovering! Hope this never happens to anyone else. A special thanks to Emily, Melinda, Nicki, Karen, and Cortney for watching my kids. And a thanks to all those who brought in meals and sent cards and flowers. I couldn't have done it without you all!

Taryn's Wedding

Merrick's younger sister Taryn was married on May 15th, 2010 to Casen Eldredge in the Salt Lake Temple. We were lucky enough to be able to be there on their day.

Here's the bride and groom.

The back of her gorgeous ivory dress.

Avery hugging her aunt and new uncle.

Camryn's shy pose.

We held a ring ceremony before the reception. Here we are walking down the aisle.

Avery was the flower girl. She was so sweet. She put down one rose petal at a time, in a perfect line. If she put two down, she would pick one of them up and put it back in the basket. It was so sweet but eventually Grandpa got up to help her move a little more quickly!

Here is the whole wedding party at the ring ceremony.

Merrick got to read a poem.

After the reception there was dancing.

Thanks to Linnea and Jill for some of the pictures - I was too busy most of the day to pull my own camera out. We had a great time being there. More pics on the rest of our trip to Utah to come.