Short Update

Sorry for leaving everyone hanging. The last two weeks have been non-stop!!

Daniel had a really rough night - the night before he took his test. His mind was racing and his heart pounding all night. After taking the test he said that he felt confident in 3 of the 4 areas. One area he did not feel so confident in so he said he's not sure what the results will be. You have to pass all 4 areas to pass. If you do not pass you have to take the ENTIRE test again, not just the section you failed. We won't know for another month whether he passed or not! But we are enjoying a little more family time!!!!! YAY!!

Daniel got home around midnight on Sat the 16th. We went to bed around 1:30am and had to get up before seven for church - our new time is 8:30 am!! :( I guess it was fortunate that we kept pressing snooze and were running rather late because I started to feel this weird pricking pain that I thought was my cervix. It felt sort of like when you start to dilate, except that I'm not pregnant and was not starting my cycle. The pricking kept constant - more annoying than painful and I wanted to apply counter pressure to stop it (but that doesn't look very nice). About 10 minutes after I began feeling it I realized that it wasn't my cervix but rather a kidney stone causing that familiar prick. I then drank about 5 glasses of water in a 20 minute time span and continued to help everyone get ready for church. The pain started moving up - inside my pelvis (sort of felt like the location of my ovary) on the right side. It still wasn't too bad. I finally told Daniel that maybe I should stay home in case it gets much worse. I was planning on taking a heavy pain pill and laying on my bed for awhile. I continued to get the kids breakfast and while I was waiting on the microwave I was running and jumping in place - anything to get that stone moving. A short time later that pain started to worsen. I finished getting Piper dressed at which time I was groaning quite a bit and I laid down on the bed. At this point my right kidney felt like a 10 lb brick. The pressure was definitely building. All that water finally caught up to me and I had the sudden urge to use the bathroom even though I was in a moderate amount of pain. I went to bathroom and started to pee - and PING! out came that stone! The kidney pressure instantly faded and I got up and said to everybody - "OK - lets' get to church"! We arrived about half way through sacrament meeting. I was so glad that I didn't take that heavy pain pill or I would have been groggy for nothing. And I was so glad that we weren't on time or I would have passed it at church!

On a funny side note. I did fish it out of the toilet and showed it to Daniel. It looked like a small piece of gravel - the size of a small pea. I decided to show the kids because I had told them that I thought I was going to pass one and thought they'd be interested in what it looked like. MacGregor looked at it and asked me somewhat baffled, "Did you cough it up?" I said "No, you pee it out." He than got really grossed out. And then Ainsley told me how she told her whole Primary Class that about that thing I peed out and how they all laughed. GREAT!! Maybe next time I'll keep it from the kids!

I had a great birthday. We actually sort of celebrated on the 18th - M & J babysat so we could go to dinner. It was great and fun to be together alone. Doesn't happen too often. The 19th was so busy that it didn't even feel like my birthday (I cleaned all day getting ready for company, took kids to piano lessons, ran home to make soup to take to enrichment meeting) but Dan did bring home an ice cream cake and it was yummy. On Wed the 20th I made some black bottom cupcakes ( my favorite). And we had a little party and the kids gave me their gifts.

On Thursday the 21st my sister Brielle and her husband Brock and their girls arrived for a 2 and a half week stay. Brielle is splitting her stay between my house and my parents. She is here for a vacation but her husband is here to work. He is doing some remodeling in our bathroom and putting up a backsplash in our kitchen. It is looking great and I'll get some pictures up when it's all done. Also on Thursday my diagonal neighbor called me to tell me that our other neighbor - across the street from me was not doing well and they didn't expect him to make it through the night. We found out that he had stage 4 esophageal cancer in late September. He was only 36 and had a 14 and 8 year old. He used to walk Lilly (who was MacG's class last year) to the bus stop every morning and he had this great riding mower that made his lawn look like a golf course. Kate asked me to pray. And I did - that night I asked my Heavenly Father what I could do to help this family - I had been asking myself for months. I just didn't know what to do because they have a super big super tight extended family that is always there. They are also Vietnamese and I didn't know what they like to eat etc... As I lay in bed that night listening for an answer - I got the impression that I needed to bake a ham and make some rolls. I tried to talk myself out it. I tried to say that I didn't know them that well - only casual acquaintances at the bus stop or nice summer evenings. I tried to say that I had company and was busy etc..

But the next morning I still had the same impression. I called my friend Kate to see if she had heard anything. It had snowed the night before and school had been canceled. She had been out shoveling her driveway and the 14 year old son of our neighbor was also shoveling. She said Dave had made it thought the night and the doctors said it could be several weeks or days - nobody knew. So that afternoon I cooked the ham from our freezer. I mixed up dough and made 20 rolls and when Daniel came home I asked him to pick the ham and it filled a 9 x 13 pan. We packed it all up and took it over the neighbors house and no one was home. I told myself no big deal - we'll just eat it later or something. I told the kids to be watching for a car to drive up at the neighbors just in case. About a half hour later I was about to jump in the shower and get ready for a date when I noticed a car had just driven up. I called Dan and we began to walk back over there where we met an extended family member who was already on his way out again. I handed him the pan of ham and said that we had made some food for the family and he thanked us and said that everyone had been at the hospital ALL day and he would take the food straight over to hospital right then. I didn't see cars come home that night and Dan found out Sat that our neighbor died around 11:45 pm on Friday night. I am so happy that I took the time to ask - I am so happy that the Lord answers prayers and that I listened to the answer. I am happy that there was some decent food for these people to eat while they sat with their loved one for the last few hours of his life.

I will sure miss David Nguyen. I cry every time I think about it and I dread going to the viewing tomorrow night. I cry for his children. I just spoke with him at the mailbox a few weeks ago when I asked him how his treatment was going. It doesn't seem real that I won't see him pick up the mail anymore or walk Lilly to the bus stop or mow the grass. Life is really hard sometimes.