It has been a whirlwind month. Here's a not so short update....
We got home from our Italy trip around 1 am. Poor Noah got up early the next morning to go to school. He missed the first day because we were still traveling home and he wanted to make sure he made it to the second day which was Friday. Poor guy was pretty tired. Here's his first day of school picture:
Aaron got up and went to work that day as well.
We did get some breakfast together before he went in to work though:
Noah had a race the next day on Saturday. Here is his team before they lined up at the starting line:
Noah didn't do as well as he had hoped, but he had been at sea level and not running for a week and a half. I told him to give himself a break:
Since Sarah had her official birthday while we were in Naples, we celebrated that Sunday at home. She chose to have Stroganoff for dinner and Better Than Anything Cake. Welcome to adulthood, Sarah!!
The following Monday Josh had his first day of school. We did have a nice breakfast of Huckleberry pancakes with Huckleberry syrup that Josh had picked up from when he stayed in Montana this past summer:
First Day of School:
Over the summer Josh studied and in August took his MLT test which he passed. He now has his MLT certification which was a relief. That will be good until he will finish school and need to take the MLS test. It is still an accomplishment, though!
Matthew started back to work that Monday, too. I don't have a picture of him, but he was super excited to start back to work. He LOVES work!! I think he would even go to work if they didn't pay him. Luckily, they do pay him, though.
The following Tuesday we moved Daniel up into his apartment at Utah State in Logan. For whatever reason this is the only picture I have of his apartment. It is a nice place that he shares with 5 other students. Sarah came along with us to help move him in.
Noah is enjoying his Junior year. He asked a girl to Homecoming. He used a 12 pack and 2 liter thing of root beer along with this poster that said, 'Would you pop in and 'beer' my date to Hoco?':
His date answered him back. Noah wasn't at home at that time, so we just left it on the bush for him to see when he did get home. I hope his date wasn't too bummed not seeing his immediate reaction.
Noah did like the answer and the poster:
The following weekend Sarah went through the Syracuse temple to receive her Endowment. It was really pouring rain that morning, but Sarah didn't mind. She LOVES the rain:
It was a great day! Afterward we went out for lunch with friends and family which was awesome!
Noah had his Homecoming day date a week before Homecoming since a big number of their group participate in Cross Country. Here he is getting ready to pick up his date so they can meet up with their group at Hogle Zoo. Noah waited until that morning to put together the sack lunch for him and his date. Poor guy didn't realize we didn't have very good lunch supplies at our house and he had to make a last minute dash to the store so they could actually have stuff to eat--haha!
They had a fun time at the zoo.
Friday morning of Labor Day weekend Sarah said she wasn't feeling very good. She was having some abdominal pain. I was getting ready to leave for work and told her to try Tylenol, ibuprofen and a heating pad. When I got home from work she said she was still having some abdominal pain, but it wasn't as bad as it had been that morning. Thinking it was getting better I didn't really worry too much more about it. That is until the next morning when she was saying it was hurting again. Again I told her to try Tylenol, ibuprofen and a heating pad. She had to work later that day and decided to try and get her shift covered, because she really didn't feel great. Aaron and I went and ran some errands and came back home to find her not doing super. She was unable to get her shift covered and had to go in. She works as a CNA so it is a lot of heavy lifting. Thankfully, she was only scheduled for a short 2 hour shift from 4:30-6:30pm. However, she looked rough. She was able to help the residents down to the dining room. After that they sent her back home because she was not doing well. She got home and was writhing in pain on the floor. At 7pm I decided it was time to take her in to the ER for evaluation. I was hoping it was going to be something simple and we could leave after a few hours. I was terribly wrong. They got us back to a room after a long waiting room wait. There they did lab work and started an IV. 30 minutes later they came back and let us know something was definitely wrong. Her liver enzymes were very elevated and they were concerned. They then ordered an abdominal ultrasound to see what was going on in her abdomen. That came back inconclusive, but they decided to admit her and do an MRI of her abdomen the next morning called an MRCP. She got up to her room at 3:40am. Thankfully, they were able to give her some IV morphine which did help with the pain. Sarah was really against it at first, but the pain won out and she finally gave in and decided to try some. She was glad she did because she finally got some relief.
Let me just say going to the hospital on a weekend, let alone a holiday weekend, things move so slowly because everyone is skeletoned staffed. By the next morning she was really jaundiced (yellow) all over--poor girl. She got her MRCP done which showed possible gallstones, but not definitively. BOO! That meant another night in the hospital and do a procedure called an ERCP the next morning. An ERCP is where the send a small tube down your mouth, through your stomach and up into your common bile duct.
The next morning, Monday, they did the ERCP at 9 am and found two stones lodged in her common bile duct. The GI doctor took some pictures to show Sarah what he found. Here's the stones he found during the procedure:
He was able to remove them, but he is not a surgeon and can't remove the gallbladder. Seeing as this is the second time this has happened to Sarah, I really pushed for her to get her gallbladder removed. The last time this happened to her was 7 years ago, but it appears to be a problem that needs to be taken care of especially since she is starting her mission next month. The GI doctor who did the ERCP spoke with the hospitalist who then got in touch with the surgeon on call who was able to get Sarah on the surgery schedule at 1 pm to get her gallbladder removed. Yay! Since it was Labor Day we did have plans to spend the day as a family, but instead of going to Top Golf we hung out at the hospital instead. Fun times!
They came up and wheeled her down to the OR. All her brothers, Aaron and Grandma T said goodbye until she came back to the floor.
Here we are waiting for Sarah to come back to her room from surgery. We are so exhausted!!!
Sarah recovered pretty well. It probably took me longer to recover from spending every night at the hospital than it did for her recover from surgery--haha! Hospital guest beds are the worst!!
Sarah just had her two week post surgical follow up appointment today with the surgeon. She is doing fabulous. She is back at work and has no pain or any physical restrictions. We did get a Doctor's note giving her clearance and approval to start her mission on October 14. We sent that to our Stake President who will submit it to Mission Medical. We are hoping things will continue as normal--keep your fingers crossed for us!!
Although this was not what we wanted to have happen, in counting our blessings the timing of this couldn't have happened at a better time. We are glad it didn't happen while we were in Italy and we are even more grateful it didn't happen when she was out on her mission! We are so thankful!!
While we were at the hospital, Josh took over the cooking duties. He was fancy and made chicken parmesan which was pretty tasty. I got to grab a bite when I came home for an hour to shower and change clothes before I went back to the hospital:
Noah had another race we got to watch that Saturday.
He did great. He was building back his endurance and decreasing his time since we had come back from Italy.
Then they did pictures. Here's a few of Noah and Emery:
Noah had another race this past week. I didn't find out about until it was too late to get my shift covered. Luckily, Aaron was able to go and cheer him on:
Josh took this picture of the crazy skies:
This past Saturday Josh and Noah had an early morning race up in Logan. Here is Josh before he started his half marathon:
We were able to catch Josh along his half marathon trail to cheer him on:
He is so tired, but made it past the finish line:
Then we came home and started cooking. We had our ward party that evening and was asked to help prepare 10 pounds of Sloppy Joes. After the ward party was over we came home and started prepping for the next day which was Sarah's Farewell.
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