Last Time

I did something today that, I'm so happy, will be the last time I will ever have to do again. Change the bag. So long to the Yeti and the bag. You served me well, except for the first few frustrating weeks. Good riddance to your untimely dumping and noisy out burst.

It's been an adventure. Not the one I was hoping for but I don't think that I would've learned as much as I did if I had gone on a cruise to Alaska, or walked on the Great Wall in China, or swam with the dolphins in Key West. Although, I'm looking forward to doing all those things one day.

No, this adventure taught me many things about myself, life, blessings, love, and suffering for a good cause, and faith. I am stronger than I thought I was. I've been blessed with wonderful, supportive, and kind family and friends. On the top of that list is my husband who made me laugh when I was crying and who encouraged me to hang in there. You were right. I really was okay. And everything worked out. And my mother-in-law, we have dropped the in law. She's been a mother to me. I've so needed that too.

Here are a few things I've learned that helps get one through the very toughest of times.

1. Pray out loud


2. Deep breathing, at least 5 of them in a row {thanks to Kristen for teaching me that little trick}


3. priesthood blessings


4. finding something to be grateful for


5. sudoku


6. housekeepers


7. writing thank you notes


8. laughter really is the best medicine

Those are just a few things on a long, long list.

I'll be back next week, new and improved. And on a new adventure.

A New Adventure

Something that my ileostomy nurse, Phyllis, said to me in my hospital room on that dreadful day when I was struggling to cope with Yeti, has stuck with me every day since. The weight and overwhelming realization that my life was never going to be the same, or at least the part that dealt with my bathroom needs was greatly altered. {*note to unassuming reading: this is going to contain some potty talk.} Going to the bathroom used to be so simple. I never appreciated the simplicity of eating whatever I wanted nor my body's automatic digestive process ending with sitting on the toilet, wiping, and flushing, not even having to look at the output in the bowl. Life was so simple.

Phyllis had finished instructing me about "the bag". I listened and acted interested but all I wanted to do was close my eyes and not wake up again or wake up to find that it was just a horrible night mare. So I closed my eyes but when I opened them I was still in a place that I wasn't excited about and the tears came. Phyllis was surprised. She thought she did something to hurt me. Finally, all I could say was that I was having a hard time mentally dealing with the bag. She was so funny and said, "oh, you're having a moment."

With great care, wisdom, and compassion she explained exactly the feelings I was experiencing, which made me cry more. Then came the pep talk. She explained that we're all on this amazing experience, life. But I'm on a new adventure. That's all it is. An adventure. It's not the one I wanted or asked for. But it's the one I've been given and it's still an adventure. And it'll be what I make of it. And she said a few more things about other people's adventures. But my mind stood still on the thought that I love adventures.

I grew up with three brothers and an adventurous father. He took us out all over the Arizona deserts and mountains to explore, climb, and discover. I had many great adventures. I remember once we were near the Superstition Mountains north of Apache Junction for the day riding our motor cycles. Us kids had one little motor cycle to share between us so while we waited our turn we explored. I was always hopeful that I would discovery a new cave or sight that nobody had known about. That day I actually came across an old abandoned dug out cabin or some kind of dwelling. Maybe it belonged to the Lost Dutchman. It was exciting.

What a blessing Phyllis and her talk of adventures has been to me. And now while I look out my windows and see all the green hills and snow capped mountains I can't wait to climb to their tops.
For another {uplifting} story about mountains click on this. I loved what was said about the difficult climbs. “To appreciate the height, you must experience the bottom,” he says. “You can’t appreciate the end without understanding the process.”

Introducing....The Yeti

My colon surgery was on a Friday. I finally woke up at 9pm that night crying in pain. Then the next few days I pushed a lovely button intermittently day and nights to follow and in between twilight sleep I would gaze up at the t.v. that was stationed on the National Geographic channel. It was a weekend marathon special about the Himalayans ever allusive creature, the Yeti. It caught my carefree attention. And after three days of watching bits and pieces of the show where the scientist were trying to prove the true existence of this legend, I began to hear the yeti moaning from the vent in my hospital, or was it the patient in the next room over??? I'll never know.

Then I was visited by special ilestomy nurse, Phyllis. She came in my room and taught me all about my new feature and accessory the stoma and the bag. The ideal stoma protrudes out about a half inch and the opening is right in the middle like a bulls eye. But to my disappointment I was not to be blessed with the perfect stoma or opening. As Phyllis examined the stoma she couldn't even find the opening at first. I knew it had to have an opening because stuff was coming out and dumping into the bag. "There it is tuck way low and aiming down. That's okay. We'll make it work. It's just a little shy one."

Then she told me that people name there stomas and I ought to think of a name for mine. One lady named hers Bling. She explained that the stoma gets kind of noisy at times. It's like having a whoopee cushion in my belly for people five feet around all to hear. The sounds only a six year boy laughs out loud about.

I sent John home for the night and I lay in my bed in the dark waiting for my sleeping medicine to kick in and I heard the sounds again. The yeti was calling.

When Phyllis came back the next day to check on me I could officially introduce her to my stoma, the Yeti, because it's a shy one that Yeti. It's true! The Yeti lives. And if you're lucky you might hear it if you come and visit me.


"...we really don't know what we believe or believe in until we're tested...Whether we like it or not our trials and struggles can tend to accelerate our push toward godliness." Sheri Dew, If Life were Easy it wouldn't be Hard

Home

"All of us have problems. We face them every day. How grateful I am that we have difficult things to wrestle with. They keep us young, if that is possible. They keep us alive. They keep us going. They keep us humble. They pull us down to our knees to ask the God of heaven for help in solving them. Be grateful for your problems, and know that somehow there will come a solution." Pres. Hinckley quoted in Sheri Dew's book, If Life were easy it wouldn't be hard.

I can't believe it's been three weeks today since my surgery. I now have a bionic colon, or so my sister-in-law, Kristen says. It's not going to be functioning until the next surgery in April though. For now, I have something else... I'm amazed at the medical minds, our miraculous bodies, and our brilliant creator. For now I have an ileostomy. Click if you want to be amazed or bewildered. But don't click and then feel sorry for me. I did enough of that on my own. Last week while I was begrudgingly taking care of matters in the bathroom with it I finally straighten myself out and I refuse to feel like a freak any longer.

Why did I feel like a freak? Because I inherited F.A.P. and had hundreds of precancerous polyps in my colon, that's the big intestine. My gastro doc adamantly insisted that it needed to be taken out and thrown away. All 5 pounds and 4 feet of it. Meagan, the smart oldest child, asked, "Don't you need your colon?" A colon is nice to have, but apparently one can get through life without one. So temporarily, an ileostomy takes over the function of the bottom. And this is the really cool part. The stool that goes into the ileostomy bag from the small intestine doesn't smell like poop because when it goes into the colon {I don't have one of those anymore} is when it gets stinky because of the bacteria in the colon. So, I can say that my poop doesn't smell. Can you say that? I didn't think so. Who should feel sorry for whom?

While I lay for 6 days in my tiny hospital room I had a lot of tv time. Too much. I saw the coverage of the Haiti earthquake. Horrific and heartbreaking. I couldn't bear to watch it any longer. People suffering in every way possible. The hardest part was seeing critically injured people in pain with no relief of medicine. And I lay in my bed with a button in hand to push every ten minutes if my pain was too much to bear. So high as a kite I lie and prayed for the Haitians. Then my kite came down. I fell hard. Drugs were a blessing to me when I was in so much pain but coming off of them was emotional damning. And after a few days of that emotional roller coaster I felt like I had been pulled out of the Haiti earthquake rubble myself.

I have many to thank for rescuing me: understanding skilled nurses, loving husband, kind friends who visited and call daily, supportive and capable mother and father in law, sister's n law, thoughtful brothers and Arizona family, hundreds of acts of kindness from ward family, and home with my children.

There's no place like home.

Tough Pioneer Girl

My dad has always teased me about being a "tough pioneer girl" ever since I was a little girl. He taught me about my Dana and Hunsaker Mormon pioneer heritage. I grew up hearing the family stories and feeling proud to be a member of a great family. Now that I think back on that little phrase that he would tease me about I wonder if I was a whiner. Being the only girl in a family of boys I imagine that I must of been too girly and it was his way of encouraging me to be strong and less of a complainer.

I can still hear his response in his playful voice after my comments of saying something like, "I'm afraid... or, I can't do that..." Then he would say, "Oh, yes you can. You're a strong pioneer girl."

He has no idea what a gift he gave me with that little phrase. He instilled in me that good old pioneer spirit. When I'm confronted with a difficult trial or situation and I just want to give up or say it's too hard for me, I hear his words, "You can do it. You're a tough pioneer girl."

So here I am trying really hard to be that tough pioneer girl. Tomorrow I go in to the hospital bright and early, to have my large intestine {colon} removed. I've inherited a really bad genetic family {not the pioneer family side} precancerous colon. In time it would turn cancerous. It's really weird how a person like me can seem healthy and normal living life day in and day out and then found out terrible news that will turn my whole world upside down. But the upside down part only lasted a few hours here and there a little.

Wow. How grateful I am to a loving, supportive husband, family and friends who pray and fast for me, great doctors and health insurance, peace and calm that the temple gives me when I attend, priesthood blessings that comfort, wonderful in-laws that take over and love my children when I can't be there, a ward family that lets me know how much I'm loved, and a loving Heavenly Father that is aware of each of us and cares what we're going through.

John says that I'm going to be like that six million dollar women... "We'll make her better than before..." something like that.

And thanks dad, for such a great lesson. I guess I am that tough pioneer girl.