The Past Week

This may be/seem super scattered, but I need to get this out while I remember stuff as it has happened. Here's what we've learned in the past week:

Chris went to the Opthamologist, where we learned that his contact lens/glasses prescription is too strong. After getting new contacts and waiting a few days to get used to them, his headaches seem to be less often and less severe.

We had our initial appointment with the ENT. After some quick initial tests we were told we needed some more extensive tests run. Those tests happened yesterday. We just got home from getting the results. For a 9:00 appointment we finally left the waiting room at 10:30, talked to the nurse for about 5 minutes as she took his vitals, and then at 11:00 we saw the doctor. He had results though, so we're feeling ok with it.

Chris has excess fluid in his inner ear, in both of his ears. The doctor said a whole lot of other stuff, but used a bajillion big words. I got that that was the problem and that it's totally treatable. There also was some other problem, but we need to address the inner ear fluid first because it may actually be causing the other problem. In three weeks we get blood work done, and in one month we go back to the ENT to see how his fluid levels have changed. He has to get allergy testing done, and that happens in 3 weeks. Apparently his allergies played a little role as well. I forget how allergies were connected.

Our diets have to change as well. Two different diets. A low sodium diet (1000-1500 mg/day), and a Migraine Diet. We have to avoid caffeine (no big deal, for Chris at least), eliminate nitrage/nitrite (kind of a big deal-lunch meats, hot dogs, ham and bacon... we love those), avoid cheeses (goodbye, Quesadillas and Grilled Cheese), and avoid MSG (we should've been doing this anyway, now we just have to start paying more attention).

A lot of those changes are fine with us, and are things we should've been more careful about anyway, this just gives us the push that we need. We just bought a groupon for Red Robin... guess we'll blow that low-sodium diet when we use it (oops!).

Tomorrow we follow up with our Primary Care Physician, and try and sift through everything that has happened since we last saw him.

If anyone is looking for something to fast for on Sunday (if you're the fasting type) I know we'll be fasting for Chris to recover, and we invite anyone to join us in that.

Surprise Packages

After all these posts complaining about how Chris is still sick, I have had a few bright, happy moments. Like the other day when the mail man showed up with a package for me. A package that I knew was coming, but didn't know the contents of, and didn't know when it would arrive. Turns out the package was full of all of these things:

Turns out I have a best friend back in Redmond who tried sending me this package months and months ago (was it for my anniversary? or for my birthday? I don't remember) but her grandma stole it because she saw a box full of candy. She just had gotten around to replacing everything, and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. There was a card that said for us to enjoy a movie night together and to share the food. Pretty sure I'm not sharing most of this. Pretty sure the last 3 weeks have been absurdly insane, and I have driven to so many doctors appointments and made countless trips to the pharmacy and grocery store to get everything we needed... I earned all of this. I'll be smart of course and not eat it all at one time, I don't want to gain that much weight.

The other fun surprise package that showed up at my door came from the UPS man. It had this inside:

.

It was from my husband, who pretended like he had no clue what was until after I opened it. It was his way of saying "thanks for putting up with me, here is a movie I know you've been keeping your eye on for a very long time." And then he watched it with me. And it was glorious. In case you were wondering, the hills are still alive (with the sound of music), and I learned how to solve a problem like Maria. And high on a hill was a lowly goat herd. And man alive, I love Edelweiss. Also, while we watched it I was reading some trivia about it on IMDB. Apparently Christopher Plummer (Captain Von Trapp) hated filming this movie and really didn't like working with Julie Andrews. He showed up drunk on several occasions so it wasn't as painful for himself. Who knew?

grrrrr

Three weeks. And still no solid answers.

Apparently it's not meningitis... if it was meningitis he should be getting much better. Now we're off to have appointments with an ENT (is it an inner-ear thing?), an Opthamologist (why is he feeling pressure behind his eyes? is his vision getting worse and that's causing headaches?) and depending on how those two specialists go, maybe even a neurologist. Thank you, USAA for excellent insurance, and for the ability to see all these specialists, and for giving us enough PTO that we're still earning money while he rests/sees doctors. Oh, and thanks to his manager and team for understanding and letting him have this time off.

I'm hoping he's seeing improvement soon, I'm going to Utah in 3 weeks, and if he's not better I'm going to feel awful leaving him for a few days. Plus there is the problem of him not driving right now... Can't really drive myself to the airport.

I rock.

Today I walked into Home Depot with a part from our toilet. I found the right aisle, found someone to help me, but by the time he got back to me I had already found the part I was prett sure I needed. He confirmed that I had the right one. Then I came home and fixed the toilet. Yeah, it was a super simple fix, the flapper just needed to be swapped out, but I did it and now we can use both toilets again without the guest toilet constantly running. But still, I did it. And I am awesome. Also, meningitis sucks, I wouldn't recommend getting it. Chris isn't having much fun with it.

Still Alive... Mostly

When I wrote my last post I thought Chris was doing well. He seemed to be doing well. But then he kind of relapsed. He was doing great, getting better, but then we got a little too excited and he went back to work. The next day he went to work as well, but then he came home before lunch time, and has been home all week as well. It's been a solid two weeks since our initial doctors appointment, which means it's been about 16 days since his crazy symptoms started appearing. In those 16 days he's been feeling kind of awful (or incredibly awful, depending on the day, and the time). In those 16 days I haven't done a whole lot. I've been busy keeping our house clean and trying to help him get better. When the doctor told him to increase his sodium, we realized we needed to change some of our meals, which meant several trips to the grocery store.  He's finally getting to the point where we think he'll go in to work on Monday. That's the goal. And I'm hopeful. It's been really different having him home for just about two solid weeks.

We've watched a few movies (random urge to watch Harry Potter anyone?), several episodes of TV shows (thank you, Big Bang Theory, White Collar, and various Food Network Shows for giving Chris the chance to relax), and done quite a bit of online research (on a whole slew of random things.... some kitchen items, kindles {do I want a kindle? maybe}, wedding gift shopping, reading random electronic reviews and demos) and done some reading. I've done most of a Sudoku book (thanks, Mom), mowed the lawn for the first time in my life, and done some coloring. We also fell in love with the America's Test Kitchen Mexican Rice recipe. YUM!  Here is some of our rice along with a fajita that I had taken a few bites from.

In the almost two years that we've been married we've had our eyes on what things parents bring to church for their kids to help keep them reverent, we've also noticed that some things are fine depending on the age of the kid (two year old with little cars=ok, but his 4 year old brother was a lot louder and out of control smashing his cars into everything and everyone around him). This is not an announcement, but over the last few weeks we've noticed some pretty sweet quiet books that look like they would be great for our future kids. And I've realized that by the time we have a kid who needs a quiet book I won't have as much time to make a quiet book. So while it's crazy I'm working on a quiet book as well as some File Folder Games even though we have no clue when we'll be needing them. Here are some of the file folder games I've been working on I'm obviously not done... there is lots of coloring, cutting, gluing, laminating, and more cutting to be done, but here is what I've got so far!

Commandment Counters:

Joseph's Crazy Coat:

 Lehi's Liahona Letters:

Word of Wisdom Winners:

Recovery

It's been several days now, but Chris is actually starting to improve now. It feels like thr last week and a half or so have lasted waaay longer than a normal week and a half, but I guess that's life. Our normal routine/schedule went out the window. I actually convinced Chris to take some naps and that seems to be helping him. Other than him being sick, things haven't been to exciting over here. I did mow the lawn for the first time. That's normally one of Chris's responsibilities-he mows and then I use the weed wacker along the edge of the house, and right along the fences where the mower doesn't get well. This time I did both jobs, and I learned that I actually kind of really like mowing the lawn. I'm glad it's mostly flat, and that we have a nice self-propelled push mower that does all the hard work. I've still been working on my BYU class, I'm about 1/3 of the way done with this class, and then just 7 more classes to go til I have my bachelors degree. I'm hoping to get through lesson 16 this summer. It may be a bit of a challenge since that would mean having to take the midterm as well, and that can take a while, plus I'll be out of town for a few days in July and August. I'm getting really excited for both of the weddings I get to go to this summer. Since I watched all of The Scripps National Spelling Bee I decided I wanted to watch Akeelah and the Bee to help me better understand the training and practicing that leads to the bee. I wish I had more exciting things to blog about, but since I don't even do Activity Days anymore I don't have craft projects on my mind too much. Hopefully this next week is a little more normal and I'll have something else to blog about.

Results

Short and sweet, the MRI came back totally clean and normal! That's an excellent thing, except that it still leaves us wondering what happened. Was it simple dehydration triggering migraine? Was it some virus? Or some inner ear problem? We wish we knew, just so we can prevent this from happening again, Chris had been down almost a whole week. The doc now prescribed some antibiotics to see if it helps speed up the recovery. I was so relieved when that phone call came!

Long/Weird days

The last few days have been long. Really long. Chris got sick on Wednesday night. He was super lightheaded, and weak and had a hard time concentrating. This continued on Thursday, and Friday. We got him to the doctor who thought maybe it was a weird variant of a migraine that was caused by dehydration. Blood work came back and left him puzzled, so today he got an MRI of his brain. Tomorrow we find out if they found anything. To say I have been a little worried for the past few days is the understatement of the century. The night after we found out he may need an MRI I had this horrible dream that he had tumors, the same kind that took the life of my seminary teacher from my senior year. That was the most horrible dream. We have since talked about what he would want me to do if that were to happen, but we're not planning on having to go that direction. And that's what's been going on with us lately.

I Promised...

Here is Jack who was freaking awesome when he misspelled idiosyncratically! The video is a little blurry, but it's the only video I've seen so far.

Obsessed...

Because I have some super awesome nephews, over the last few years I have learned to LOVE the Scripps National Spelling Bee. This is the third year I've had a nephew in it, but the first year that I have watched the entire thing. On Wednesday I watched pretty much from 7-5, although there were breaks and such, but my whole day was consumed with the spelling bee. I watched all 278 contestants spell their two words. Today I watched the semi-finals as I swept, mopped, and generally just cleaned my house. The finals start in a little over 1 hour. I can't decide who I am cheering for the most. There are a few kids who have won me over. I would love to see the kid from Jamaica win the whole thing. He is the most polite kid, saying "Thank you, Sir" each time Dr. Bailly would give him information about his word (origin, definition, alternate pronunciations, a sentence containing the word). Then there is the kid who has been in the bee the last few years and has always worn the same yellow striped polo shirt. He is fantastic. And then there is Lena. The pure excitement (and sometimes shock) she has after she spells a word right, running back to her seat... it's just contagious!

Besides my nephew, which obviously is the highlight for me... (have you ever watched your nephew on ESPN before?) my all time favorite moment of the spelling bee was when a boy named Jack was given the word "idiosyncratic" and he messed up. He got 2 letters into it, messed up, realized he had messed up, and turned it into the funniest moment of the spelling bee. He spelled it like this: I-O- *pause* -Q-R-S-Z-3-QUATRO-F-L-V-R-Q. Seriously, hilarious. I'm still laughing about this, and trying to find a video clip of it. If I do, you can bet that I'll post it.

Other highlights include people who asked 1. For a different word 2. If he could spell the word for them 3. For an easier word. Such funny kids!

The National Spelling Bee is freakin awesome, and I'll be sad when it's over tonight... I'm already looking forward to watching it next year! I'd love to thank Teag, Talm, and Tag for helping me find a new favorite tv program... if only it was more than just two days a year!