Family Emergency

To put it simply, my grandpa almost died on the day before Thanksgiving.  He ended up in the hospital down in St. George, UT after a few days of being sick and not getting better.  My grandma had to call the ambulance to come get him and when they took him into the hospital, they showed that he had a UTI, his kidneys had shut down, and his heart had gone into afib.  They were doing what they could to get his kidneys working, and trying to figure out what was going on.  He complained of having a pain in his back that just would not go away so the nurse ordered an MRI.
I think the MRI came back on Wednesday and it showed his back was full of a rare, and very dangerous infection, the nurse said she had never seen anything like it.
They life-flighted him in a jet from St. George, up to Salt Lake to the University Hospital immediately.  My whole family was at the hospital immediately, waiting for my grandparents to arrive.  While the doctor talked to my grandma about what he was going to have to do, my family got to visit with my grandpa.  At this point, he was closer to death than anything, and looking back, I think they did this beceause they weren't sure if he was going to make it.
They took him into surgery, where they cut his back open from the base of his neck, down almost 18 inches.  They started out with a smaller incision but when they got it open, pus and gunk started to spill out everywhere so they had to make it bigger.
The surgery was about 5 hours or so I think.  My family sent my grandma home because she had been by his side for days and she was exhausted, and they all sat and waited.
He came out of surgery and the doctors explained that this was going to be a long road to recovery.  He was going to be on a breathing tube for at least a few days, and in the ICU for a while.
Only 10 hours after surgery, they took him off the breathing tube, and just last night(Nov.23) they moved him out of ICU.
Our family has seen a miracle.
It still is going to be a long road of healing.  He will be in the hospital for a while longer and then he will be moved to my Uncle Gary's nursing home facility where he will stay for 6 weeks while they administer antibiotics through an IV.
I know I am right where I'm supposed to be right now, in Michigan with my other grandpa, but I feel like I am always in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I feel so incredibly far away from the rest of my family right now, but I know that when I get home, they will really need my help as they all return back to work.
You might ask, Where in the world did this horribly rare infection come from? I asked the same question.  Turns out, about 1 1/2 months ago, my grandpa stubbed his toe and it lifted the nail off of his toe.  I told him he should go to the doctor to get it taken care of.  He said, it would be fine, if it got worse, he would go in a few days.  A week later he finally got it checked out, surprise surprise, it was infected.  The doctor gave him an antibiotic, told him to soak it in Epsom salt a few times a day and sent him on his way.  The infection cleared up, no big deal.  Problem? part of the infection got into his blood stream and settled in the weakest part of his body, his back. (He has had 2 back surgeries in his life, so apparently that makes it the weakest part) So for a month, it has been building and building until finally it attempted to shut down his organs, one at a time.
Right now, he is in A LOT of pain.  He doesn't get to sleep very much because of the pain.  Someone from my family is there 24/7.  While he was in ICU, he complained that there were ants crawling all over the walls of the room. (side-effect of the pain meds)
We know he is getting back to normal because #1 he has started harassing everyone like normal #2 the ants are gone.
Moral of the story? Listen to HEATHER! Nobody did when I said there was something burning in the house, next thing you know, fire in the oven. "Go to the doctor", if he would have listened, he would have been able to enjoy the turkey he hates for Thanksgiving.  He has been harrassing me and grossing me out with his nasty toenail ever since it fell off.
Everybody has warned him that when I get home, he's gonna get it, and he will, right after I hug him and tell him to never scare me to death like that again, or I'll kill him.
Not very many people knew what was going on because everybody has been in such happy moods around the holidays and I didn't wanna bring my emergency into it but my family appreciates all of the prayers that have been offered, they truely have worked and have been a big blessing.  My grandpa is a strong man and he will get through this, we all will make it through this.  It has brought us all much closer together and there's no better time to do it than the holiday season.
*peace out girl scout*

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was a little different than normal.  Its been just over a month since my grandmother passed away and there hasn't been a day that has gone by that I haven't thought about her.  I wondered how this holiday would be without her around and it was actually just lovely and relaxing.
My grandpa drove up to my Aunt Julie's house and we went over to my Uncle Matts', sister Liz's house.  There were 11 people, 5 giant dogs (Sue, these dogs are only slightly smaller than yours, now imagine the madness of having 5!), and 1 cat.
The dinner was absolutely delicious!  We had 2 turkeys, one smoked, and the other roasted.  The stuffing was wonderful, we had yummy brussel sprouts, garlic mashed potatoes, and gravy.  We had THE BEST sweet potatoes I've ever had, and the best maple cranberry sauce.  We started out with a yummy curry and apple soup (I know there was something else in it but I can't remember, but it was good).  It was such a relaxing day and we didn't even have to bring anything, we just showed up.  We had so many pies to choose from, including a sour cream pie, which I tried, and it was wonderful, my grandpa said it was similar to a mincemeat pie (not that I would know since that name doesn't sound pleasant).
After dinner, there was some dancing in the living room...and then we all went outside onto the very large, covered patio where they started a fire in the fire pit and we sat by the warmth while the rain came down.  It was a super chilly night but there is something so comforting about being next to a fire.  It was a fabulous Thanksgiving filled with wonderful people.

The next day my grandpa took me to a U of M Women's Basketball game.  He has season tickets so we thought it would be fun to go.  We saw some of my grandmother's friends there and visited with them for a brief moment.  U of M were playing against Harvard and they were both pretty good teams, but in the end, we won! 72-61
The whole time we were there, I could not stop thinking about my grandma.  She was a True Blue fan through and through and went to as many sporting events as she could.  When they sang the fight song I got a little teary eyed, I will always remember her singing the fight song and pumping her fist up into the air, cheering the teams on :)
*peace out girl scout*

Justin Bieber

I flew out to Michigan on Monday, November 19 to be here for Thanksgiving.  There also happened to be a Justin Bieber concert that my Aunt Julie and Uncle Matt had bought tickets to for my cousin Olive.  Since I've spent so much time out here recently, we had talked about going together and wearing matching outfits and everything.  Our dreams came true and I finally got a ticket to be here. The concert was on Wednesday evening and we had to drive into Auburn Hills which is almost in Detroit.
The kids only had a half day of school so I drove to their house on Tuesday evening so that I could be with them for a few days.  Wednesday felt like the longest day EVER!
Olive got home from school and then we picked up Buzz from school and basically we just listened to music and played around for a the rest of the afternoon, counting down the hours until the concert started.


Bieber Bound in our matching purple jackets :)

When my aunt got home from work, Olive and I were dressed and ready to blast out of there! I felt like a teenager again.  We made a CD earlier that day filled with only Justin Bieber songs and we cranked up the volume and (carefully) cruised out of town.  It took us nearly an hour to get there and we knew we were close when the traffic came to a dead stop.  We followed a Party Bus that had a poster on the rear that said "Bieber Bound" and we knew we couldn't get lost if we stuck close to it.
We parked the car and literally ran to the building, we were seriously so excited.  We used the restroom (which took awhile considering the concert arena was basically all female) and rushed to our seats.  We had a pretty decent view of the stage but still pretty far away, but we didn't care, we were at a Justin FREAKING Bieber concert!  I'm pretty sure I did act like a teenager again.  It reminded me of my very first concert, which was Aaron Carter.

Aaron Carter, such good memories :)
 

view from our seats

The opener for the concert was Carly Rae Jepsen and she sounded great!  We weren't for sure if she would make it because we had heard that she had been sick earlier that week and hadn't performed but she got better just for us!  Then finally, the long awaited moment.  OUR boy Justin finally came out on stage!  He sang, all the girls screamed and sang right along with him (me included).  It was such a fun night! We laughed, we screamed, we sang, we danced, and a lot of girls actually cried (Olive included).  It was so fun to be able to let loose and just sing as loud as you wanted and dance and scream.  By the end of the night, Olive and I barely had any voices left, and our ears were ringing a lot.  We stuck around afterwards and waited in line for about 45 minutes to get our t-shirts, don't worry, we have matching ones :)


What a cutie patootie!

I have to admit, I really do like Justin Bieber and his songs.  I know that I am 23 years old and I get a lot of crap for liking him but I don't really care.  He is a cute guy and he has catchy tunes, so sue me!  A lot of people say he is terrible and isn't really talented at all and it kind of infuriates me.  During his concert, he played the guitar, drums, piano, sang and danced.  If that's not talented then I don't know what is.  It was a night I will remember for the rest of my life.  I absolutely loved being able to be with my cousin.  She is now getting to an age where we are starting to have things in common and we can talk about practically anything and I love, love, LOVE it.

We safely made it back to Grand Blanc (where she lives) and we decided ice cream was the perfect cure for our hoarse voices so we stopped at the grocery store where we got Hot Pockets and Ben&Jerry's and we danced Gangnam Style through the isles of the store because it was midnight, and nobody was really around, and because we wanted to!

This is one of my favorite pictures, all smiles. Good memories :)

 

*peace out girl scout*





Adventures in Babysitting

Today I’ve been babysitting Chloe.   She is always fun to have around and I love being able to spend some time with her.  My uncle dropped her off at about 8:45, she is wearing her purple dress with a tutu, her Rapunzel yarn braid, and a gold crown and a pink flower in her hair, what a kid.  This girl is funny.  She walked in and started singing “Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now” If you don’t know this song, just ask me, because I know it now that she sang it about 5 times in a row. 

We turned on some cartoons and just watched the TV for a little while when she informed me she was hungry.  This time she told me in a nicer way than she did last week when I babysat her and she said, “Um, usually my babysitters feed me”

I offered cereal, oatmeal, a banana.  What did she want at almost 9am? Her “favorite noodles” A.K.A. Ramen.  So we finished watching PB&J Otter (one of my old favorites) and then we made Ramen.  Before I let her have her noodles, I made her do the noodle dance ;) Here's a link if you don't know what the noodle dance is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhJKKbI7fMo

We spent most of the morning singing songs from Dora the Explorer, and dancing to other Disney songs that came on Pandora.

We (me) made cookies. She said it was harder than she thought it would be and gave up after making one ball of dough.  She sure participated in the eating though.

For lunch she wanted a Honey and Jam sandwich for lunch…I was hesitant to give the child that much sugar but I figured she’s going to lose all her teeth anyway, and I would be giving her back to her mother soon so I went ahead and became the favorite cousin and gave her the sandwich she wanted.

5 year olds are so fun :)

*peace out girl scout*

Pore Strips

So you know those pore strips that you can put on your nose, forehead and chin? Well I was being crafty and trying out something I found on Pinterest. Those strips can get pretty expensive when you buy a box of them so when I saw that you could make them with 2 cheap ingredients, I jumped on it. 

You mix milk and unflavored gelatin. Easy right? It smells awful, I was expecting no smell at all.  So I whipped up a batch and the lady that was explaining how to do it said she smoothed it all over her face because it needed a little “lovin”, or something like that. So, I put it all over my face…looking back, this was a BAD IDEA.

I waited the required 10-15 minutes for it to harden, it hardened so much that my face couldn’t move at all.  And then she said you peel it right off…easier said than done.   I might as well have put super glue on my face.  I scratched and picked and finally started making some progress.  It hurt so bad, I thought the first layer of skin on my face was being ripped off.  Yeah sure by the time I was done, what was left of my pores were clean.  I should have taken a picture because I looked like I had a bad sunburn and my skin had been peeling because I didn’t want to get the rest of the crap off my face, and it had been scratched and rubbed raw.  Even after a nice shower and a generous application of moisturizer my face was still bright red.

Note to self, IF I ever do it again, I will NOT spread it all over my face.
*peace out girl scout*

Election Day

On Election Day I had the opportunity to work the polls. We had to show up at 6 am to begin the setup of the voting machines, computers, and hanging signs before the polls opened at 7.  I was responsible for writing people’s names down, the form of ID they showed, their precinct, and then I had to make sure they signed next to their name.  It was a super long day, I worked from 6 am to 9 pm.  During that amount of time, I wrote 498 people’s names/information down, I’m surprised my hand didn’t cramp up…although the next day I didn’t bowl very well so that was my excuse for that. 

I only encountered about half a dozen grumpy people, which is good considering the amount of people that passed through there that day.  There were people lined up right when we opened, and for the most part it didn’t get terribly busy until about 3:30-4, and that is when everybody got off of work and the madness began.  We were constantly busy until about 30 minutes before the polls closed.

It was a fun and good experience.  I worked with some fun women, and during our down times we snacked on delicious treats that they all brought. I would definitely do it again if I was needed.  I’m glad that I could help people move along and do their duty to vote!  If you were wondering, I did get a chance to vote in the afternoon!  It was a good day.

*peace out girl scout*