It's Been a YEAR!!

WARNING: THIS IS THE LONG VERSION OF ADAM'S HOSPITAL STAY FOR MY RECORDS :)
On Saturday it marked a year to the date that Adam went into the hospital with HORRIBLE pain in his stomach. We had NO idea what was in our future at that point. It has been quite the year. I am not sure how Adam would describe it but for me it was a little slice of (excuse my wording) Hell!! But also a whole lot of growth and strengthening which I would describe as getting closer to Heaven. Here is the timeline of last years events.
August 30th: He started feeling really bad
August 31st: Came home from work early (he was acting CLEAR in the head so I could not fathom that he was actually sick because when you are sick with the flu or something it makes you sort of out of it... I am horrible!!)
Sept 1st: Stayed home from work, pain was getting worse(I thought he was overreacting). We had our friend Trent, who is a P.A., come for a house call and he tried to help him but we were all sort of puzzled
Sept 2nd: REALLY not feeling well and he got a blessing.
Sept 3rd: We tried a lot of things to get the pain to go away... NOTHING worked. I thought if he just had a good bathroom go he would be fine. Of course he had nothing in his guts to get out cuz he hadn't eaten much of anything solid for 3 days at this point. He told me he wanted to go to the hospital at like 12 (and I was like "whatever", so I laid the kids down at our friend Amanda's house. He decided to hold off and see if sleeping would help any. It didn't. Finally around 4 we went to the hospital.
I have to admit at this point I was sure we needed to be at the hospital but I was really not aware of how high his pain was. When they got him back there and assessed his pain he told them it was an 8 or a 9. WHAT!! I had no idea. They gave him a shot of Morphine as soon as his IV was in. At this point I was feeling so terrible that I hadn't believed him and started to really worry about what was going on inside him. (he has a blood clotting factor that he is on blood thinners for and I worried that it was something like that).
*He got a cat scan
*results came back pretty fast that it was Pancreatitis. We didn't even know how to say that word let alone spell it or have ANY idea what that meant or how you get it.
*Nurse that told us said, "You usually get it from drinking too much"... um ya he has never had an alcoholic beverage before. "oh well then it is probably something to do with your gallbladder and they will probably have to take it out" UM NO... I won't let them do that (I had heard some horror stories about having your gallbladder out and was certain it would never come to that!!)
*He was admitted to the hospital
*AMAZING PEOPLE IN OUR WARD offered to completely help out with our kids. THANK YOU EVERYONE!!
*We waited around for the doctor, who never came.
*Meantime he was moved off morphine and given something that is 10 times stronger called Diladed. It was then that he was finally able to sleep a little.
*I went to get the kids at 11 from Merri's house and we went home to sleep.
*I don't really remember the next few days but recall only that I went to the hospital 2-5 hours a day to "help" him but felt that he was pretty much in a drug induced sleep state and I felt like I wasn't really help at all so I would leave to take care of the kids.
People at church asked me how he was and I thought he was feeling fine as long as the drugs were in him (the deal with Pancreatitis is you have to just WAIT for the inflammation in pancreas to go down which meant he was pretty much on water and some clear liquids for like a week. There is NOTHING they can give you or do that will stop the inflammation, it really is a waiting game.)
By Sunday nights visit it was clear that he needed and wanted me around ALL THE TIME. Which meant 24 hour care for our kids. I arranged that with the help of the amazing sisters in the relief society and my own sisters.
The Dr. told us that he needed to get up and move around that laying in bed was not going to help him any. This was almost an impossible thought for Adam. He was hurting all the time at this point. The Diladed was to its maximum legal dose and he was still not able to really relax. He had to go 2 hours between doses and he would wake up with 30-45 minutes left before he could get another dose. So our this became our routine...
Diladed into his IV
Sleep restlessly for and hour or so
Get the nurse to unhook his cords (which always took forever) so we try to go to the bathroom and walk around
Walk the halls
over and
over and
over and
over
the whole time he would be in pain, I would be on the brink of emotional breakdown and we just had to keep moving forward.
He would burp loudly while we walked the halls trying to get some of the trapped gas out of his stomach (this is actually what caused him so much pain, his stomach was so full of trapped gas.)
Get back to the room
go to the bathroom again
help him lay down
call the nurse
W A I T for the clock
finally another dose of Diladed
and it all started over again.
24 hours in a day, only 12 doses of liquid relief... tired, tired, so so tired.
Not just fatigued, exhausted emotionally, mentally, I hardly need to say physically. We never knew when the final relief was coming. It just kept being the same day after day after day.
I slept on the little couch they had in his room. I was so grateful to by his side to help him even at 3 in the morning and again at 5 and again at 7. He said that when I was not there he felt panicked and even more uneasy. As soon as I would show up a wave of relief would come over him. I cannot tell you how much closer this experience brought us to each other and to our GOD. Even as I write this tears come when I think of how much Heavenly Father loves us.
There was a moment in the hospital that was quite pivotal for me. It is personal and sacred but I share it because most of my "blog" readers probably aren't going to read this long post and those who do deserve to know my feelings. It was in the hours between Diladed doses that I had an awe inspiring experience. My husband was in severe pain. Almost crying. My strong wonderful husband was almost brought to tears for pain. AND THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO TO HELP HIM OR CHANGE HIS CIRCUMSTANCE. I thought of our Father in Heaven and His Power and His wisdom and His Omnipotence. He could do something to help my husband, but he wasn't. I knew He would if it were best for my Adam. He certainly would. But He saw greater wisdom in the experience than I could. I then was so very aware of a tiny part of what He must have felt when His own begotten son was in the Garden of Gethsemane going through the most anguish anyone has ever had to endure. A father who LOVED His son with everything that He had wanting to help Him and make Him better and TOTALLY having the power to do so. But for the greater plan... the plan of salvation, of happiness of REDEMPTION, he not only stayed His hand from helping our Savior ease His pain, He even saw the wisdom in painfully withdrawing His spirit from Jesus for ONE PURPOSE. To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of MAN. I cannot even imagine the feelings our God must have had at that point. KNOWING He could help His PERFECT son, but that if He did, He would lose all of His other children in the process.
Right then I knew and still know, MY FATHER IN HEAVEN sees the whole picture. He knows what will make us stronger. He wants us to LEAN ON HIM AND HIS SON. Only then are we strong enough to go through anything and everything. He loves us.
Adam was in the hospital from Friday the 3rd to Saturday the 11th. 8 days of "waiting" for something to improve. He had many procedures done to see what was taking so long. The results were always... Wait and see. It was horrible. But the love that deepened between us and God was and still is amazing.
Adam's Dad and sister Mariah came down on Thursday night to be with Adam. Bill took turns walking the halls with Adam and Mariah took care of the kids for us. I know that his whole family would have been there in a heartbeat had circumstances allowed but having Bill and Mariah there was a comfort for all of us.
The next 6 weeks were pretty much a routine for Adam as well. The pain was still there but could be managed on a narcotic instead of Diladed. I slept on an air mattress in the loft for the first two weeks. Finally, seeing I would be there longer I had a friend Mitch Borden bring over a mattress my sister wasn't using. I slept there for another 2 weeks. The whole time hearing Adam get up in the middle of the night and walk the bedroom for relief of the gas in his stomach. I would go in every once in a while and help him out or keep him company.
The night I got to move back into the room was surreal. He felt well enough to sleep mostly through the night except for a few downstairs excursions to walk around so he wouldn't wake me.
I think in total he missed 8 weeks of work and was still reluctant to go back because of pain. But he did finally. They were so good to work with him on all his sick time off.
Now it has been a year and he deals with pain everyday. He just isn't himself yet. He did end up getting his gallbladder out about 2 months ago and that went well and he recovered normally.
We are going to start an herb regime next week to strengthen his digestive tract and pancreas. We will keep you posted.

Our Health Woes

I have an amazing husband. He is sweet and caring and such a great Daddy. He works hard for us and loves to be with our family. Most of you know this already, but he has had some health issues since he was admitted to the hospital because he had Pancreatitis. He has been battling pain since then so they did an endoscopy to see what was going on. Apparently his gallbladder was full of stones and needed to come out. So... here we are at the Hospital again just before surgery. It has been 3 weeks since the surgery and everything is healing nicely. He still has an inflamed pancreas but things should start turning up for him now that there are no possibilities of stones getting lodged in the duct to the Pancreas.
Even though he is sometimes a sickly, I sure do need him and love him.

SURPRISE!!!

Even though I had all sorts of plans for Adam for his birthday he had to go and change them all up on me. It still ended up working out though, we visited family in St. George then drove home on Monday. I timed it just right so that when we got home our house was full of all our family and friends. He walked into a big surprise party.

Adam didn't want a party cuz he didn't want to have to entertain people, but he loves ping pons so we had a ping pong party. This table was borrowed but we are on the hunt for our own used table since it is technically the only sport Adam can play with his blood condition.
Sisters and I
OUr friend Jeff and Adam playin' some mean ping pong
Happy Birthday Honey
Even Kevin got in on the action
Mitch and DJo with Adam

Adam

So life has been pretty basic and boring over here in Endsley land. We are enjoying our kiddos and their cute little personalities and just basically going from day to day.
A friend of mine gets her husband back tomorrow and it reminds me of the times when my husband and I didn't live in the same house, city or State. That is really hard, but this friend of mine didn't even have her husband in the same country... for 6 WEEKS. Ugh!!!
I have come to really rely on Adam. He is a really reliable guy and always makes me feel so safe. He is sort of like clockwork. He comes home, backs into the garage, sits for a minute while catching the last of Glenn Beck or some other mad person, then goes for the mailbox. As soon as he's in the door its kisses and hellos and then he just needs to relax in his chair. Sometimes he goes up and changes into more casual clothes but I think that is only when he has the energy to climb the stairs before getting a bit of a break. He is a basic guy who could eat my simple ground turkey McCormick Tacos almost every night and love it, yet he is so incredibly smart and loving too. He cracks jokes and teases us all the time and I really don't know where I would be without my wonderful, eternal, handsome husband.
I am sorry you all didn't end up as blessed as me!!! (Of course I'm sure you feel the same way about your blessings).

Journals are fun

I got home late last night because I went to play volleyball with a group of very talented girls and I sat down on the couch to read my scriptures sort of regretting that I was just now getting to my 15 minutes of reading. I looked up only to find my box of memories sitting in front of me (it was in the food storage closet for some reason and we took inventory yesterday). So I started flipping through pictures which I would TOTALLY post here but my computer won't let me. Then I picked up a notebook I used to use as my journal. WOW... is all I can really say.
It took me back to a sort of unpleasant place but also made me super grateful for where I am and who I have in my life now.
My journal was right before my mission during this 2 year long relationship that was SO DYSFUNCTIONAL. Anyway I found this entry where I wrote down what I really wanted in my future husband and it made me laugh and want to cry and I secretly wanted to just go wake Adam up and tell him how much I love him and how grateful I am for him.
I will share with you what I wrote
6/10/02
"I want the basic things in the man I marry. He has to be a return missionary... not just that but he must have served completely faithfully. Like my Dad. He has to have a good relationship with his parents and family. He has to be silly and know how to tease and how to be tease. Playful and not always thinking logically. Not too serious. But I want to be able to talk about everything with him. And not just that but I have to feel supported by him, and encouraged. He needs to make me feel comfortable about my self but at the same time make me want to become a better person. I want inspiration and love. He has to know where he is going in life, to know his job and love it. I have to see him in many different situations and see his good and bad qualities. Playing with his children is a big thing for me and he has to help his mother with the dishes. Basically I want a perfect man and although there are not perfect men out here I will find the one for me, and I will not just love him, I will be in love with him and won't be able to live with out him. I can see his imperfections but I still love him. I don't have to marry the first person I love.
My parents have to be excited for me but not make the decision for me. I have to feel like he is so wonderful... why is he with me? But at the same time I have to feel confidence in the relationship. He has to love Arizona... and the heat. He has to want my advice but also help teach me things."

If any of you know Adam you will also know that the above description of my "future" husband is EXACTLY what I got... except for one minor detail... HE HATES THE HEAT and does not really love Arizona.
Oh well I think he is perfect for me... I am so blessed and I love my Adam so very much.

Journeling for a POINT

I am doing this challenge and one of the ways you can earn a point is by journeling every day. Blogging does occasionally count so here we go.

This challenge is really opening my eyes to the things I have been somewhat immune to. I have grown accustom to thinking of only me and my family. When I do so I sort of shut down. I eat a lot more, I tend to opt out of hard things i.e. exercise, schedules, cleanliness (staying organized IS HARD for me), even the thought of reading my scriptures tends to make me sort of sigh. I know this is horrible admitting this in public but I need to face it all.
I have 10 things everyday that I NEED to accomplish and knowing I have those things to do makes me plan and accomplish my day better. When I do these things my life just seems brighter which tends to make me get out of my rut.
I have to do a random act of service every day and I gotta tell you it has been kind of hard to find things to do that I would consider giving myself a point for. So it makes me look out for ways to serve, when I see an opportunity I usually take it but then later think, I bet could find another more meaningful one. I really kind of like it so far. It sure does get me out of myself and focusing on God's children.
I know this is random, but I just want to interject here and say how much I love my husband. He went back to work full time today and it was really hard for him. He is so tired and also used to being home half of the day. He works so hard for our family and I really want to show him how much he means to us.
Speaking of family, Katie today was so fun. She has been a little fussy lately cuz I think she might be teething, so it was a breath of fresh air to have her happy and lively again today. She is attempting to walk and will try to take just one or two steps then fall down and laugh. Today while we were sitting on the couch she came over and stuck her head in my hands and then I just sort of grabbed her little face and wiggled it a little bit. She laughed so hard over and over and over again. Finally Adam and I were talking and she came over, grabbed my hand and stuck her face in it. She did that probably 20 times, each time laughing a little more than the last. Then she would attempt to walk, fall down, crawl over to the pillow and bury her head in it with excitement. So cute.
Last night after I put Kevin to bed he got out and I sort of got mad at him. He was trying to tell me that he wanted a different toy but I don't usually cater to that sort of thing so I sent him back to bed. He whined a little but did get back in bed only to get out again a few minutes later. He got out of bed again and when I asked him what the heck he was doing out of bed he very calmly said... "I was looking for you" He really wanted his other toy (but he had already picked his allotted 2 for the night) and I told him it was all the way downstairs and I was not going to go get it. He cried a bit and finally I said you can have lightening McQueen if you want (it was in the hallway) and he got mad and said NO, I DON"T WANT HIM. So I said goodnight and let him cry for a little bit then asked him again if he wanted lightning. By this point he is willing to compromise and he said yes. I gave it to him and he said (still kind of crying but with the sweetest little voice) "Thank you, Mommy" That made me want to go get the other toy from downstairs for him. Don't worry, I was strong and just told him "Your Welcome and I love you".
My kids are Priceless.

Adam and the Hospital

Most of you already know what has been going on in our lives lately, but I will inform the rest of you now that I have a second to myself.
Last week Adam was feeling yucky and then finally on Wednesday he went to the Dr. They thought it was either Gastritis or the Flu minus the fever. Thursday he woke up and had major pain in his abdomon so he didn't go to work. Friday was the same thing but worse pain. By the time 4:00 hit on Friday he had tried so many different things to see if he could get the pain to go away and we had exhausted our options for what "normal" sickness could have him so dibilitated so we went to the ER. As soon as they saw how much pain he was in they gave him morphine which BARELY took the edge off. They gave him something called Diladed and took him for a Cat scan.
Right away they came back with the diagnosis that he had Pancreatitis which they said is something usually caused by excessive drinking (obviously not the case) or Gallstones. Long story short he does NOT have gallstones, a blockage or any other reason why his pancreas got so mad at him. The GI doc said that 75% of all cases the cause is never known. So he must fit into that category. He was admitted and told that Pancreatitis is extremely painful and the only way to fix the problem is to let the pancreas rest by not eating anything. He was put on a strict water diet for 2 days then they let him have some other clears which he is still on now.
The hardest part about this whole thing is the pain of it all. He seriously would go from extreme pain to extreme drowsiness (from the pain stuff) to extreme nausea. For 5 days it was like this. The Diladed finally wasn't even working on him so we decided to switch to pills by mouth rather than the IV drugs in order to switch it up and get him better. (Apparently the more you take narcautics the more you stop your insides from working properly and the harder it is for the pancreas and its swelling to go down.) The nights that followed I stayed with him at the hospital and it was HORRIBLE. He was literally in so much pain it was all he could do not to scream. They would give him his pain meds he would sleep for an hour and then we would walk the halls for half hour or so to get his mind off it and get his stomach working again. It was traumatizing. He could not find a comfortable spot and everything ached. It was so hard to watch him go through it and know that there was NOTHING I could do about it.
To make a Long story a little shorter I will let you know that I started giving him herbs and he started to feel better. They released him yesterday afternoon and he is doing better here even though he is still in a lot of pain. We still have a good stretch of road ahead of us but we must say we feel stronger and closer to our Heavenly Father and Savior now more than ever. That journey is for another post, but it will be coming.
I love all of you who stepped up and helped with the kids and our house and made the effort to be there for us. Even for those of you who fasted and prayed because you couldn't be here to physically do something. It would have been a complete nightmare had we not had all of your support. Instead it was a very trying time with a lot of comfort and love.
Thank you... please continue to pray for Adam to heal.
Love Ashley