Too Much

I've obviously taken a bit of a blogging hiatus... And not all of it on purpose. We've had a lot going on in the last few weeks and sadly, not all of it has been good. I don't know why bad things have to happen all at once but man, they do. So dealing with life has meant I've put off blogging until I've felt like I have my head above water again. I'll do my best to keep things somewhat chronological but really, at this point, I don't care as long as I can just get caught up! So here we go.

I guess I'll go through the not-so-good things first so I can end on a high note. A few weeks ago my work sent me to the Pediatric Critical Care Nursing Conference in Orlando. I was so excited to go. I would be paid for each day I was there, the company was paying for my airfare, hotel room and conference fees, and I would get to hear about the latest research on best evidence-based practice in my area of expertise. Yes, I'm a nerd that way. I love learning about stuff like this. I'm not so much into the actual doing of the research but I sure love learning about results and practical applications and stuff. The coolest thing that I learned from this conference was that our PICU at Primary Children's Medical Center is really top-notch. No, seriously. The speakers would talk about national clinical trials and new research on patient care and I'd think, "Yep, we're already doing that. Yep, we're already involved in that study. Yep, we've already implemented that. Yep, we're involved in that national trial too." And listening to questions that nurses from other PICUs would ask, I realized we are way ahead of the curve. Our training and education is far and beyond what other PICU nurses receive. That was so fascinating for me to realize that our PICU in little old Salt Lake City of all places has a nationally ranked PICU. The stuff that we're worried about and trying to improve upon are nitpicky little things - other PICUs have huge practice changes to make, and those practice changes are things we do as normal every-day patient care. I was excited about that. The second-best thing about the conference was having time completely by myself. 100% alone time. That sounds bad but other moms I'd talked to got it. It's hard to feel pulled in a dozen different directions all the time and be needed by so many people all the time at the expense of yourself. Even though I only have one child (thank goodness) I feel worn thin constantly being a frantically-running-all-the-time-human-jungle-gym. Then Mark needs time with me. Then I work full-time graveyard shifts, and as much as I love my job, it is stressful (every time I go to work someone's life is literally in my hands) and sleep-depriving, and being sleep-deprived makes everything seem worse than it actually is. So between everybody and everything I never got time to myself, or at least never enough to make me feel re-energized. And that stressed me out even more, trying to please everybody, which of course is impossible, and it felt like I'd sacrifice what I needed so everyone else could get their piece of me. Anyway, the bottom line is it was great to have time to dedicate completely to myself.

You might be asking why this story is categorized under the not-so-good things. One problem was I had to be away from Mira for several days. (She ended up being okay with the whole thing. She got in some good bonding time with my sister and parents and we didn't have any problems like after Mark and I got back from our big trip in July. Whew.)

Mira insisted on pulling my suitcase when she came to pick me up at the airport :)

However...the biggest problem was Mark wasn't able to get time off work so he couldn't go with me. And without getting into more detail with our dirty laundry, it spiraled out of control and has ended up causing a major - and I mean MASSIVELY MAJOR - rift in our relationship. There is more to it than what I'm putting on here, but this conference has caused some REALLY MASSIVELY MAJOR issues. Bad enough we momentarily had to discuss going separate ways. Don't worry, we're dedicating ourselves to working it out - but it's been really really bad. I know once we can get through this our relationship will be much better for having worked through it, we're both making some sacrifices so we can spend more time together focusing on working through our problems, but for now it's been a miserable, stressful, depressing, hurtful few weeks.

So this started the day after I got back from the conference. A few days later while Mark was at work we get a call at home from Mark's sergeant informing us that Mark was taken by ambulance to the hospital for chest pain. This was scary for several reasons. 1) Of course when anyone you love is taken by ambulance to a hospital for anything, you get scared. 2) Mark has a profession that is notorious for creating heart attacks. Cops very commonly have heart attacks at young ages. 3) Mark is adopted so we have absolutely no family history on him. He very well might have family members that had heart attacks in their late 30s or early 40s. We just don't know. 4) Because he was taken by ambulance, we didn't get a choice in which hospital he was taken to, he was taken to the nearest one. The nearest hospital to us is called Lakeview Hospital, and those of us in the healthcare loop "joke" that people are sent to Lakeview to die. It is not a hospital with a reputation for doing a spectacular job with curing people.

So Mark got the whole heart attack workup. He was admitted on a Tuesday afternoon and by Wednesday afternoon he had gotten several lab draws, about half a dozen EKGs, a couple chest x-rays, a stress test, and an angiogram. And still having classic heart attack symptoms: chest pain and pressure, difficulty breathing, sweating, numbness and tingling all the way down his left arm to his hand. I knew that after he did the stress test and angiogram Wednesday morning it would still be awhile before we heard back about the results, since I work in a hospital and I know how long it takes to get anything done. A couple hours later the nurse wanders back in the room and announces: "Okay, your test results are back and they all look normal, so we're going to send you home."

Ummmmm... excuse me?

Me: "Does the doctor know what the problem is then?"

Nurse: "Umm, no, it might be something musculoskeletal, I guess..."

What I should have done at this point was demand that the cardiologist get his sorry ass back in this room to tell us what the hell they were going to do about figuring out what the problem is, but I kept my mouth shut. So we get sent home with no diagnosis, no special instructions, no new medications, no plan, and Mark is still having chest pain! Friends from Utah, do not take anyone you care for to Lakeview Hospital. It really is as bad as we thought. So it came as no surprise to us when the next day, Thursday, Mark is having worse chest pain and more difficulty breathing, so back to the ER we went. Mark thought about having me take him back to Lakeview, since they had all his records, but I put my foot down and took him to a real hospital. This time we went to LDS Hospital, which is where Mira was born and coincidentally is part of the same company that owns Primary Children's, but the point is that we know for sure LDSH is a good hospital.

So of course Mark had to get more labs sent, another chest film, another EKG, and an echocardiogram. Again, everything that would indicate a heart attack was negative. Luckily, this time the doctor talked about what it could have been. Apparently one of Mark's inflammatory markers (I should have asked which one) was high-normal and there was maybe an indication on the echo that there was an inflammatory response going on, so option 1 was he got a mild pericarditis. That means there was some inflammation around the heart. It can occur spontaneously but it will also resolve spontaneously. Option 2 was esophageal spasms, which apparently can cause symptoms almost exactly like a heart attack. So in case that was the issue, Mark was sent home on Protonix. Plus some Lortab for the pain. It was still a bit frustrating to walk away without solid answers, but at least we know it wasn't a heart attack and we had an idea of what we were dealing with. After all that I've decided I much prefer being on the other side of healthcare.

This brings us to Thursday evening when we finally get back from the hospital, again, and get everyone settled in. It suddenly occurred to me that it had been a few days since I could remember seeing one of our cats, Stewie. I tried to brush it off and tell myself that there was a lot of commotion the last few days and we hadn't really been at home so he was probably hiding like he usually does or maybe he got himself stuck in the garage or he sneaked outside or something. The next day Mark found Stewie dead underneath our couch downstairs.

To say I was devastated was an understatement. Before Mira, my cats were my babies. Even with Mira, I have a special place in my heart for my kitties. I like our dogs of course but I'm a cat person through and through. I jokingly call myself the "cat whisperer" because if you give me enough time I can make any cat love me and Mark has sworn that he cannot under any circumstance die before me because if he does I'll become a crazy cat lady and adopt 40 cats and name every single one of them. (It's true, I would.) This hit me so hard. Weeks later I still want to cry because I miss him so bad. I hadn't even known something was wrong. Stewie had been losing a lot of weight the last couple of months, but he's always been high-strung and nervous so I figured he was stressed about something (like the fact that his brother has been spending more time outside away from him) and not eating because of that. We had changed cat foods recently and I'd catch him eating the dog food so I figured he didn't like the new cat food and was going on some sort of hunger strike so I changed back to the old cat food. But obviously something else was going on and I'll never know what was wrong. Mark guessed he might have had cancer. We could maybe blame old age on this but I doubt it. We adopted Stewie and Neo as adults so we have no way of knowing exactly how old they are but we're guessing 7-9 years or so. That's not incredibly old for a cat, especially ones that weren't acting old.

Mark originally didn't want me to see Stewie because he thought it would hurt too much, but I needed the closure. He at least looked like he'd just laid down and died peacefully but all I could do was cry because all I could think was that I was a bad kitty mommy. I should have known that something was wrong and at the very least I should have been there with him when he went so he wasn't alone. We had a cat named Porsche that died almost exactly 4 years ago from when Stewie died and as sad as that was, it was easier to handle. She was old, and we could tell when she was getting ready to die and I held her in my lap and pet her for hours until she finally went. I could feel better about her death because I was with her and she knew it. I feel like I failed Stewie here. Mark kept reassuring me that I had been a good mommy to Stewie - I had given him a good life, much better than what anyone else could have done for him, and even though he had had some problems I loved him and he knew that. You can't do much more for a pet than that. But it still hurts.

Following tradition started with Porsche, we bought a fruit tree and buried Stewie in the back yard with the tree marking the spot.

The Stewie Tree

My sweet kitty

Stewie was only 1 cat but the house feels so empty without him, and much less entertaining. We think that before Stewie came to us he was abused because every time an adult man came near him, he would freak out and run away and hide. Women were fine - he was still skittish and he would have this tendency to abruptly freak out and run away but he would let women pet him and he would get on laps to snuggle. (And that was an ordeal, this cat was huge. He would sit on me with his front paws by my neck and his butt in my lap without having to stretch out.) Mark would come home from work in his uniform and for some reason Stewie would be okay with that. He would let Mark pet him and scratch his neck, then Mark would walk upstairs, change his clothes, and walk back downstairs a few minutes later, and the second Stewie saw him he would bolt. Lately though Stewie was getting affectionate with Mark when he wasn't in uniform even - he would even sit on Mark's lap voluntarily! He was such a character and I miss him so much. (My hints to Mark that my sorrow would be greatly assuaged by adopting that orange tabby I've always wanted have been flatly rebuffed.)

All of this within such a short span of time was just so overwhelming. There's one more bad thing that happened that isn't as bad as the 3 other things I've just mentioned but it's bad enough. We finally killed the last rooster awhile ago, leaving us with 5 hens. A couple weeks ago the hens somehow got shut out of their caged area and then the dogs were able to slip out. One of them attacked a hen before we could stop it, and the hen lingered for a couple of days before dying. That really pisses me off because the hen that was killed was the one giving us the green eggs. I've been really tempted to sell off or kill the dog that did it. We've had some behavior problems with him before and killing that hen will be a big loss. This is another reason I prefer cats.

Okay... Big cleansing breath... Find your center... Namaste... Let it go... Move on... Here are some soothing pictures from a date Mark and I went on a few weeks ago to Park City Mountain Resort, one of our favorite places ever, to help you forget the bad stuff. See, don't you feel better already?

Well let's move on to some nicer stuff. Mira is growing like a weed and cute as ever! She still has a very limited vocabulary but otherwise she's a completely normal 19-month-old. I try to take her outside for a long walk or an outing to the playground at least once a day so we can burn off some of this boundless energy she has. She had another spell lasting a few weeks when she started waking up at night again but this week she's been sleeping all the way through again so I'm blaming another tooth coming in or a growth spurt or both. She loves to wash her hands in the sink, which is probably a really good habit for her to get into. And she absolutely loves to "help." We all know how well a toddler can actually "help" but it is so dang cute! We make a huge deal about it when she throws something away in the trashcan or puts a dirty dish in the sink or puts her toys away - I still can't teach her that when she tries to help clean the house with the toilet brush it makes things dirtier, but we'll get there, I hope!

This picture cracks me up

A couple weeks ago we went and did something we've been contemplating doing for quite awhile... Mira moves so fast it's almost impossible to get a good picture of her but look closely and see if you notice her new accessories.

Mark wanted to get her ears pierced since she was a little baby but we kept putting it off. It took a little while for me to get used to the idea. I wasn't allowed to get my ears pierced until I was 13 so I had just assumed that was how we were going to do it with Mira, but Mark surprisingly really wanted to get it done early. I've always thought earrings on little babies and little girls was unbearably cute but I think my only hesitation was the actual piercing. I didn't have anything against it that I could pinpoint. So we were at the mall and we passed a Claire's, decided to just go ahead and do it and in we went. Mira did great. She screamed when the studs went in, then she got a sucker and a couple minutes later she was running around pulling merchandise off the shelves and dancing about and that was that. Now she notices her earrings in the mirror when she looks at herself and gets excited when it's time for her to help clean her ears. We have to clean the studs with a special solution 3 times a day and she loves to grab the bottle and the Q-Tips and "help" wash the earrings.

Since we're on the topic of body modifications... Mark got his third tattoo recently. This is the second tattoo he's gotten from the same artist, Casey, who does some pretty amazing work. Mark designed this tattoo himself. There's some Masonic symbolism in there with some little details that make it personalized to him - this is certainly a unique tattoo.

Mark had to shave his leg to prepare for the tattoo - I hope he doesn't mind that I threw this picture in here. I haven't stopped teasing him about how hot his bare leg is. :)

Brand new!

A few days later I was back for my first tattoo. I'd put a lot of thought into what I wanted and I knew Casey could pull it off. I told him what I wanted and how I wanted it done and left the details up to him. The actual tattooing took less than an hour and I tried my best to be tough about it but WOW it was painful! Part of the problem may have been that I'd worked the night before so I hadn't gotten much sleep, I hadn't eaten and I hadn't had anything to drink so physically I wasn't in optimal shape. I didn't whine or cry or pass out or anything but near the end I almost did pass out. I was getting a little dizzy and lightheaded and at one point I started to see grey spots swimming in front of my eyes. I was shaking all over and I was starting to anticipate the pain, which would make me tense up and that of course didn't help. Luckily, Mark sat in front of me and let me hold his hand (I'm surprised I didn't break bones or anything!) the whole time. That and reminding myself I was doing this for Mira is probably the only thing that got me through. I would like to get another tattoo at some point but we'll put that off for awhile, seeing how this hurt so much. :) Here's what we ended up with:

In progress

Right after Casey finished. It hurt about as bad as it looks.

The next day - not as swollen and ouchy looking. It looks even better now.

The Kanji is Mira's middle name, Yukiko, which translates to "snow child." (The top symbol is Yuki=snow, the bottom symbol is ko=child.) Even though Mark and I decided on the middle name before Mira was born, it ended up being completely appropriate for her because it was an incoming snowstorm that put me into labor. As soon as we got to the hospital it started to snow, and it continued to snow the whole time we were there. The Japanese cherry blossoms of course represent my Japanese heritage. In Japan the cherry blossoms have a lot of cultural significance - the actual cherry blossoms only last for about a week and then they're gone, so they have come to symbolize the impermanence and the fleetingness of life. Basically, you need to live in the moment and appreciate what is present today because tomorrow it might all be gone. I absolutely love what it stands for and in general that's an excellent mindset to have anyway. Casey said after it was done that the tattoo looks like it was supposed to be there - the colors work so well with my skin tone. I am completely thrilled with how well it turned out and I'm so glad I did this. I'll be even more thrilled when it's completely healed. Right now, a week out, it itches so bad and I can't scratch it because it'll ruin the ink. The itching is almost worse than the pain! I have moments when I feel like I really am going crazy because the itching is so horrific. I would kill for some Nubain now. For those of you planning on getting inked at some point - ice packs have made mine feel much better. I can't scratch my tattoo but at least I can numb the hell out of it!!

It occurred to me that getting a tattoo is very similar to having a baby. You have a lot of anticipation leading up to the event... Then there's lots of blood and pain involved... Then you have to spend all of your time for the next couple weeks of your life trying to maintain this new addition. There is a lot of upkeep involved for a new tattoo. It has to be covered and kept out of the sun (which sucks because it feels better when nothing is touching it). You have to keep it clean and moistened at all times. You can't pick at it, you can't scratch it, you can't pull the dead skin or scabs off. Any clothing you wear over it has to be clean and breathable. You can't submerge it in water. Did I mention you have to keep it moisturized at all times? I bet I have the softest shoulder on the planet now with how many times a day I rub lotion into the tattoo. Oh yeah, the lotion has to be fragrance-free. And one more thing, you can't scratch at it.

I'll be sure to post another picture of it once it's all healed up. It's looked wonky the last couple of days because the top layer of skin has been falling off and the skin underneath is getting tight and will probably fall off in the near future as well but it's not infected and the ink isn't streaking or anything so I'm sure it'll look gorgeous when it's done healing. I can't wait to show it off!