Something that makes the Excursion look small??

Olivia and I stayed at my parents again on Saturday night and then they brought us home around 1pm on Sunday. Jon got home at about 4:30 on Sunday morning with the trailer so he was able to get some rest until we got home. It was good to see him, I felt like I hadn't seen him in a week. Jon's parents brought the twins home just a little bit later which was also great. I hadn't seen them since Tuesday night before my surgery. I was surprised that I missed them so much, little stinkers. They are hard work but so cute!

I was also surprised at how big the trailer was. Jon hooked it up behind the excursion today to move it to where we are going to store it and I couldn't believe how little the excursion looked in front of it. Check it out....

We are so excited to be able to use it this summer! I started a load of laundry this morning and thought I better look through all my pockets since Jon left a black marker in his pocket last time I did laundry and guess what I found?? MY RING!!! I was so excited. I know I had looked in those pockets at least 2 other times so it must have been hiding somewhere. I couldn't believe it. What a huge relief that was. After the kids were all home last night they were getting so hyper because they were all so tired and Cody and Olivia were rolling this car back and forth and just hysterically laughing. I had to catch it on tape. If you have trouble veiwing it click here to see it directly on google video.



I am still really sore and taking both my muscle relaxer and pain meds on a regular basis. I got a call from the doctor this morning that she has had a death in the family and won't be able to see me on Thursday so I am going in this afternoon. I HOPE I get to have my drain taken out. It is so uncomfortable. Wish me luck!

Saturday

We had an interesting change of plans yesterday morning. Jon and I bought a travel trailer last week but had a hard time finding one that we wanted that met our needs, to carry the four wheelers and was a bumper pull and not a fifth wheel. There weren't very many of the used trailers for sale with the separate garage area for the quads which we were looking for. Jon finally found one at a dealership in the Los Angeles area that we purchased last week and were planning to go pick it up in a few weeks when I was feeling better. Jon had one of his buddies offer to help him go and get it this weekend so he could have someone else to switch off driving with. If I went with him I would not feel comfortable helping drive it home. I don't even feel comfortable driving a little trailer behind the car so this would be out of the question. With the twins already spending time at grandma and grandpa Brock's and Olivia spending the weekend with Jon's aunt Clara and uncle John the kids were not a worry. I came over to my parent's house yesterday and will stay here for the rest of today and tonight as well. Jon left yesterday with his buddy Kenny to drive out to California and get the trailer. I am glad I got out of the long drive and that he had someone else to trade off driving with. We are really excited to have the trailer and hopefully it will make camping much easier with all the kids and we will go much more often. Did I say we were excited yet? So it is considered a toy hauler because you can drive the quads straight up into the trailer. Here are a few pictures.

Here is the front of the trailer. The circular dining table folds out into a bed and so does the sofa. Here is the kitchenThis is the garage area that has 2 hydraulic bunk beds that come down. I put some more pictures of it on the picasa site. The link is on the side bar of the page. Jon just called and said that they were able to pick it up and everything looked great. Now he has the fun 15 hour drive in front of him to get home.
I am still doing pretty fair. I was up and around way too much yesterday because I was feeling pretty good and today now I am really sore. The displacement exercises are getting a little less painful but still way uncomfortable. I will be camped out on the couch at my parents for the rest of the day staying on top of my muscle relaxers and pain meds. I can tell a difference in the right and left side. I have a drain in on my right side that is still draining a fair amount but not on my left side. I can tell that my left side is more sore and swollen because there isn't a drain on that side. I slept very comfortably last night on my side so already is it much better than the tissue expanders. Thank goodness!!

Surgery is OVER!!

My doc did end up being able to stay and do my surgery yesterday and I am so glad it is over with!! I was only under for about 2 hours and experienced no nausea, which was such a relief. It was a thousand times better than my last surgery and could even walk to the bathroom with some help right after I got out of recovery. The pain was way less intense than the last one. Don't get me wrong it still hurts a fair amount but nothing like last time. I stayed overnight at the hospital and as always had some awesome nurses. Today when Dr. Brewster came in to release me she showed me these displacement exercises where I have to move the implants around, pushing them up to my neck, together and down. This was very uncomfortable but is necessary so the scar tissues doesn't start forming a tight capsule around the implant. I did have to use a drain on my right side which hurts but is working well. The left side that doesn't have a drain you can tell is more swollen. When Dr. Brewster came out to talk to my mom and Jon after surgery she said that the expander on my right side was pushing into my ribs rather than stretching the radiated skin and that is probably why I was in so much pain from the expanders.
All and all I am happy with the results and SO glad to be done. Hopefully this is my last surgery. On Tuesday I couldn't find my wedding ring and still haven't found it. I am so upset I can't find it. I can't even remember where I had it last or took it off last. Sheesh! My mom came to pick me up this morning in the car since the truck was such an ordeal last time to get in and out of. It didn't hurt on the way home to turn corners or go over the railroad tracks like last time so that was also great. My chest feels so much better with the implants in since they are much more soft. I was even able to sleep on my side for awhile last night which was very uncomfortable with the expanders. Well I am off to bed. Just thought I would let everyone know I am doing alright!

Surgery, or no surgery??

Well I have been doing my best to boost the ole' immune system since I do have a bit of a cough still and still getting over my sickness. Taking the Airborne, juicing my carrots, apples and wheat grass. Today I have been feeling a little better with less coughing so I am hoping that my efforts have worked.

We had a great weekend. Jon decided last minute to go out just the 2 of us on Friday night. It was nice. We went out to eat and then to see a movie. We saw The Other Boleyn Girl. It was fair, sad since it was a true story. I am glad I wasn't living in the day it was okay to be somebody's mistress and then discarded with the trash. It was a nice night since we haven't been out on a date just the 2 of us for awhile.

Saturday I got up and went shopping with Cody to Kohls and Target to get the Easter basket stuff and try to find some zip up outfits for surgery stuff. Man I have also been trying to find some jeans that don't have a one inch zipper and super ultra very low. What is up with that honestly. Not that I want them above my belly button but come on now. I even looked in the womens section. Nothing. I did find some some good "shlumpadinka" (Oprah's term for the mom sweat outfit wearers) outfits for surgery. Saturday night we took Jon's parents to a play that our church put on for Easter called Savior of the World. We had lots of people in our stake and the neighboring Greeley stake participate and it was quite the production about the birth and resurrection of the Savior. It was great, lots of hard work went into putting it on and both my sister Heather and brother Ethan were in it. They did great.

The kids had a great time with the Easter bunny on Sunday.

I got the girls their dresses last year at The Children's Place for 3.99. Nice. My mom got the girls these white gloves to wear for Easter aren't they adorable?

Cody was being his usual "pill" self and not wanting to take a picture, but Jon finally got hime in one...

We went to my parents for Easter dinner with my sister Heather's family and my brother Ethan's family, Jon's Parents, and my Grandma Monday. The kids have always called her grandma great but Cody just hasn't been able to quite catch on yet and is still calling her grandma grape. It's pretty cute. Oh and it snowed here on Saturday night. Go away already...

Today I went out to Greeley to transform my hair. My girlfriend Courtnee is going to beauty school there and I wanted it cut and colored and just DIFFERENT already. Stupid girl (me) aren't happy with it aren't happy without it. Oh well. I do like it though it is more light brown. She put 2 different blond highlights in it and then gave me an A line cut. It is short in the back and longer in the front. But still have all those shorter layers throughout it since they haven't grown out. I really like it. I think it will be a nice change to have more of a style instead of waiting in limbo for it to grow out already. I will have Jon take some pictures of it tomorrow since I can't seem to get any good ones of me doing it myself :-)

So I also got a call today from the surgeon that there are some family things going on and she isn't sure she can do my surgery or not. Nothing like waiting around to find out. She will call and let me know tomorrow if it is a go or not. Let's get this over with!!

Wednesday March 19th

I am still struggling with the cold and cough. Still congested and coughing. With surgery only a week away I figured I better do everything I could to try and get rid of the sickness. I went out and bought my wheatgrass, carrots, and apples. I started juicing yesterday and hopefully it will help boost my system and get me healthy again soon!
The Bachelor started on Monday and of course is just another show to add to my "sinful love of reality TV". (just like Juanita!) Just thought I would mention it because there was a gal on there that is from Loveland, CO. My home town! I couldn't believe it. Don't know her though, it was fun to see my hometown's name pop up on TV. Well that is really all the excitement going on here. Just praying to be healthy by next Wednesday when I go in for surgery!

Sick as a Dog

Wow it has been a long week. Instead of going to the relay meeting on Tuesday night I ended up having to take Olivia to the urgent care office. She had a UTI.
Wednesday morning was really crazy. I did the marathon preschool registration for the twins here in town at Community Preschool. I had to stand in line to get a number at 8am. They did 3 groups of parents. The first group that was able to register was for families that currently have students at Community, the 2nd group was for alumni and 3rd was for completely new families. We fell in the 2nd group since Olivia went there last year. There were people in line starting at 6 in the morning, crazy talk. I was number 11 in my group. I had to come back to register at 9:45. Before the 2nd group even got to register they came out and said all the 4/5 yr old classes were full. WHAT?!? I couldn't believe it. I signed them up for a 3 yr old class and put them on the wait list, but was pretty frustrated. I talked to some other people throughout the day about other preschools since I was pretty sure they weren't going to get in. After devoting all morning to this and not getting in I was bummed. Then after I got home Cody started running a pretty high temperature and coughing. He was sick the rest of the day and wouldn't leave my side.
On Thursday I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a train. I was so sore all over and was getting super hot and then super cold minutes later and my throat hurt. I couldn't believe that I was hit so hard with this. Cody was fine after Wednesday. I couldn't even function the entire day. I called the dr. to make sure that I could still get in to get my last fill and she said that should be fine. I spent the entire morning in bed trying to stay warm and couldn't even get comfortable because my muscles hurt so much. I haven't felt like that since I had that neulasta shot to boost my white blood cells and my bones hurt everywhere. I made it to the doctor to get filled and then spent the rest of the day on the couch.
Friday was the same except the sore throat was so painful it hurt to swallow. I couldn't even sit and work I was so sick. I went to the urgent care on Friday afternoon and I didn't have strep throat, just some virus going around. He was nice enough to prescribe me some cough syrup with codeine that has at least helped a little. Friday afternoon I got a call from the preschool saying that they were adding an afternoon class on Monday and Wednesday and could get into that one with both the twins. I was ecstatic since I had a great experience last year with Olivia. At least the stress of finding them another preschool is over.
Saturday was boring, same thing. Couldn't function and wanted to die. On top of that I lost my voice. Even breathing hurt my throat and on top of that I started getting a bad cough. Saturday was a sad day for Jon.....We sold the Jeep. He's totally bummed, still bummed. Poor guy. It was a fun car but just not realistic to keep around anymore.
Today I finally got a break. The hot and cold and body aches both stopped and my throat even is feeling a little better but is still hurting. I have my voice back somewhat but the cough is worse today. This is just the pits. I hate being sick. Mom and dad were nice enough to take the girls to church since Cody was running a temp again today and now Jon is feeling a bit under the weather. I hope he doesn't get the same thing. So that wraps up my terrible week. Hopefully this next week won't be as bad. Oh, and it is snowing today.....spring, where are you??

6 years later....

Well still dealing with being sore and sitting with my heating pad. Welcome to my world. Today I went to a nursing information session at Front Range (the local community college) to find out more about their nursing program. So the skinny is that there is AT LEAST 2 semesters of prerequisites to take (if I want to be a full time student for a year) before I can get my name on a 3 YEAR WAIT LIST! Then after going to school for a year and then sitting around waiting for 3 years I am still expected to remember everything I learned in those prerequisite classes 3 years ago. Then the nursing program itself is 2 full years. Oh wow. I better have a good memory.
Not that the time is a huge deal but if I want to do this it is either this route or commute 45 min each way to UNC and take the 4 year bachelor of nursing program OR commute to Cheyenne a hour each way and do their 2 year nursing program. That's a lot of commuting. Lots to think about.
I have the first official captains meeting for Relay for Life tomorrow night. They extended the sign up discount of $5 per person until the 15th of March so sign up for my team soon! Follow the link on the side bar of my blog to sign up. Looking forward to doing it again this year.

Buddy Check 9

Hello my family, friends, and lurking readers! Today is the 9th of the month and therefore buddy check 9 day! This is the day that we are all to remind our buddies to do their monthly self breast exams. Remember early detection is key and if you find something, don't let your doctor tell you it's nothing or you're too young to have breast cancer. Coming from someone who is 27 and "too young to have breast cancer", it can happen to you! Keep a close eye on any abnormalities and monitor if they grow or change. Love you guys all!!

We lost an hour last night to daylight savings and the kids slept in until 8:30 (okay 7:30) but it would be nice if they would sleep until 8:30.

I have been pretty sore since Thursday. On Friday I went into physical therapy and basically got a massage under my arms and on my back for an hour. I also was able to try this massage bed called the Sola Jet. You lay down and it uses warm water jets to massage. I would love to have one of these in my home!! I wanted to take a nap afterwards. I am still being vigilant about my stretches and exercises although very sore. Hopefully that is helping to keep me loosened up.

Yesterday Jon took the kids and his parents down to the outdoor show to look at boats, trailers, RVs, etc. I was feeling still really sore and didn't want to over do myself so I relaxed at home and worked. My Mom, Dad, and brother Mason came over and brought me lunch from Costa Vida. Yummy.

Jon had a gentleman take the jeep yesterday to get looked at from a shop and gave us a deposit yesterday. Hopefully this will all work out. He is of course sad to see it go. It has been a fun car and we went on our first date in the jeep. However with it almost never being out of the garage and driven it is very impractical and will get us almost entirely out of debt. Just our car and house left on loans. What a huge weight to be taken off our shoulders!! Hopefully this will all work out for us.

Don't forget about your self breast exams and have a good Sunday!

Thursday Fill Day

I have been really good about doing my stretches from physical therapy in hopes that things would continue to help me out. I think that it paid off. I have been feeling less and less tight and was able to fill 20 cc's at my appointment today. Hopefully I will be able to do the same thing next week. Dr. Brewster said lets just try 10 since that is what we did last fill. So we did 10 and I didn't experience almost any of that uncomfortable pressure so she did 10 more. I am extremely sore right now and have a pain pill in my system but hopefully only one more week. The sooner I can get this over the better!
My surgery I have now scheduled for Wednesday March 26th. 3 weeks baby! Mom came over to help me out tonight fed me my muscle relaxer and pain pill so I am sitting pretty on the couch for the rest of the night!

The 80s Called....

Oh yeah. I had my girls night on Saturday and it was a total blast! My friends Alyssa, Michelle, Melanie, Aislinn, and I all went out to the roller skating rink in Fort Collins.

I can't even tell you how much fun we had. We even all bought those oh so cool glow sticks, because after all we were at the roller rink!

Here is me video taping AND skating at the same time. There is some real talent. Remember to pause the music on the bottom of my blog before playing the video. Does anyone else hate the sound of their own voice on tape? (so if you can't view the video here click here to go to the google page)

Remember my idea from my post on Saturday about the knee high socks and sweat bands? These kids there jacked my idea so next time we go we are going to go all out and dress to the 9's in similar outfits.

There were even moments of falling down laughter!

After skating we went looking for something to eat and ended up somewhere where they had dancing so we took advantage of that and got our grove on for about 10 min.

Notice how there is barley anyone else there? We opened the place up at 10pm! Ha! Here is a great clip! (If you have problems viewing video click here to veiw it directly from google)



Looking forward to making time to do this again soon, for sure! I have many more pictures on my Picasa site.

The twins got to have their sleep over at grandma and grandpa Brock's house last night and it was a nice break. I can't believe how much easier it is to have only one and a pretty independent one at that. I was here ALONE all morning while Olivia was in school. Wow, crazy! But I did miss them and it was good to have them home this evening. We went out to eat with my Dad last night for his birthday and it was fun to spend some time with my parents and brother. Olivia and I went out to lunch today with my friend Jerilyn that I haven't seen in awhile and Olivia fell in love with her daughter Ella. She talked about Ella all afternoon. We went to about 50 stores to find Olivia her "tying" shoes. Now that she knows how to tie her shoes she needs to have ones with laces, so I have been told. (by Olivia) Fine, except nobody carried shoes she liked in her size. We ended up going to 6 stores before finding ones in her size. Wow, what a pain. But thank goodness we found some in her correct size!

I am really tired of my hair.....we have a love/hate relationship my hair and I. Don't have it, hate it. Have it, still hate it. I just have never had short hair and I struggle with the style. So I figured since there is absolutely zero I can do with the style until the front grows a little more I want to do something pretty drastic with the color. Any suggestions from anyone?? (this is where you leave me a comment and /or email me a picture)

A Nice Day Finally!

I think this has been the warmest day of the year. It was in the high 60's here today, but supposed to snow tomorrow...darn! This week has gone by much faster than the week before. I went to physical therapy on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this last week and I think it is getting some what better. I am trying to stretch it a little every day also. My pec muscles are still super tight but not painful, which is good.
Olivia got the flu on Wednesday night, that was fun....NO! She was throwing up about every 45 min from around 7pm until 2am. Poor girl, she kept saying, "Mom, I hate throwing up." Yeah, I hate cleaning up your throw up! She did make it in a bowl or the toilet every time which was good, but still...yuck. On Wednesday the drywall crew that has been working on our basement finished with the primer and texture. It is really looking great, still a long way away, but looks great! We had the missionaries over from our church for dinner on Wednesday and they had that really loud texture machine on for most of the time there were here. Although that we pretty crappy I had tried this new recipe I got from my sister Amy for the sweet pork that Costa Vida sells. They are similar to Cafe Rio. So I made the meat and then also had a recipe for their rice. Oh wow, it was a big hit. They even took home ALL the left overs. I made burritos so we put the rice, black beans, and all the fixings in the burritos and then smothered them with enchilada sauce and cheese. Yeah, we will be eating this again, lots in my house. Here is the recipe for it:

Costa Vida Sweet Pork/Chicken

(This is so similar to the restaurant and can be used for salads, burritos, or tacos. I have also included the rice recipe that is so good!)

4 Chicken Breasts or 1 pork loin (I used pork loin)

2 Cans jalapeno El Pato (in green can) (If you like the meat really sweet only use one can)

(this stuff I found on the Mexican food isle and it says jalapeno salsa on it and is about 1/2 the size of a normal can, just FYI b/c I had a hard time finding it)

1 cup brown sugar

a dash of cumin

sprinkle of pepper

sprinkle of garlic salt

Combine all ingredients in crock-pot and cook for 6-8 hours. When done shred and use however you like.

Costa Vida Rice

1 cup rice

2 cups water

3 cubes chicken bouillon

½ tsp dried onion

¼ bunch cilantro

1 tsp oil

1 fresh lime

Cook rice with all ingredients on stove or cooker. Squeeze lime juice over rice and mix before serving.

I just used the sauce and beans out of the can.....SO GOOD!!

On Friday Olivia decided that she wanted to play this new game called Maid. She wanted to be the maid and loaded the dishwasher and picked up the kitchen and living room in this little dress up skirt. She also took all the cushions off the couch and cleaned out from under them. I was like, you should play this game more often! It was funny.

On Friday Jon went down to Denver to pick up our new four wheeler. We sold my old one because I wanted one that was a little more user friendly. This one has automatic shift, is four wheel drive and is a little bigger and easier for the kids to ride on with me. Also there are racks on the front and back so we can strap coolers or backpacks on it for long rides. I am really excited to take it out on a ride when it is nicer outside. Tonight I am going out with some girlfriends to go rollerskating and for appetizers. It ought to be a riot! What else are you going to do when your married with 3 kids and don't drink?? I will post some pictures. I think I might wear some short shorts, knee high striped socks, and sweat bands on my wrist and head! HA! Alyssa said like the Jessica Simpson Video where she is rollerskating.......Okay So I just went to find the video, that I have never seen, I was going to put it on my blog but it is R rated in my opinion so I am not going to put it on here. It is called a Public Affair if you want to subject yourself to that on you tube knock yourself out!

Slowly, slowly....

So late on Tuesday evening still feeling a little bit better every day. Physical Therapy yesterday went well lots of stretching and he did this thing on my called dry needling. Um, not so fun words to hear about wanting a doctor to do some needling. I was like ah, are you sure? Do you really think it would help? After some persuading I decided to let him do it. They are really thin needles and they run an electric current through them and you feel your muscle spasming. There were a few that did hurt a little going in but nothing like a shot. I felt born again right after my session and then about 30 min later the muscle soreness has set in and I have been sore but not in pain like last week since yesterday evening. Tomorrow I am supposed to go back to PT in the am and hopefully get to feeling better and getting stretches to do here from home.
I got my pampered chef stuff today and am so excited to start using it. I got the food chopper and a cooking stone along with a few other things. I used the stone to cook my rolls tonight and they were great!

Another Monday..

Wow, I haven't been on in a week. I had lots of help from Mom last week, Jon is working nights so she came over every night last week to help feed us and take care of kids. My brother Mason came over for dinner one day and I had to take a picture with him. I swear we have the same hair. It is time for me to do something different as far as the color for sure!! Here we are together...

I had the burning pain in my under arm all last week and it never really got any better. I went in for my fill on Thursday and Dr. Brewster said I needed to get to the Physical Therapist ASAP. She thought my muscles were just getting tighter and tighter and the pain was from the muscle rather than the skin. I was able to fill the rest of the way on my left side so I am at 250 cc's and done on that side. I was at 200 on the right side so thought we would split the remainder and fill 25 cc's at my next 2 appointments. When Dr. Brewster started putting in the 25 cc's on the left side the burning pain under my arm was immediately 100 times worse and then the skin across my chest felt like it was going to split wide open. I said, "Um is it normal to feel like the skin across my chest is going to explode at any second?" She of course said Yeah no, and still had the syringe in my expander and just let go of the end and let the pressure take the fluid back off. We only ended up filling 10 cc's on the right so I am only at 210. But that 10 cc's felt more tight than any of the last 30 cc's at a time. Pretty disappointing to be so close to being done and realize that I might have to wait another couple weeks and fill slowly. Dr. Brewster is out of town this week so I have no choice but to skip the fill this week.
She recommended a good Physical Therapist here in Loveland that I called immediately after getting home on Thursday. He was able to get me in that afternoon. Of course when I went in for my first visit and consult he kept saying wow your muscles and tendons here are really tight. I could barley move my right arm over my head. He also looked at my spine. I have know I had a curvature in my spine since high school, my GP told me it was a minor amount of scoliosis but nothing to be too concerned about. Apparently it has become worse and is now contributing to my problems with my right side. He wants me to go get an X Ray of it. Great, just what I need another problem to worry about. He did some stretching and massage and it actually has been feeling better the last few days. I have been trying to stretch and massage that tendon from my pec muscle to my under arm a few times a day and have noticed a difference. I will go to PT 3 times a week for the next 2 weeks and hopefully get much better.
Dr. Brewster did say that I need to only wait about 2 weeks after my last fill to have my next surgery so that is good news that I don't have to wait around a long time before I am done. I am really concerned with how tight the skin is around the expander on my right side. Hopefully it will all work out OK in the end. I haven't really done much of anything the last week because I have felt so horrible, including my hair and make up. Ha! That gets depressing feeling like crap all the time and not having motivation to do anything. Good thing for all the help from my mom and Jon. Today I got up and did both and will go to PT this afternoon, and hopefully continue to feel better as the week goes on.
We are in the middle of getting the drywall done in the basement. Last week the guys did all the muding and taping and they are here today doing the sanding. All the dust is going to be really fun at the end of the day. Then they will primer and texture and be done. It is exciting to be moving further along with it. I can't imagine what it will be like to double our square footage in a few months. (hopefully it will be done in a few months) Cody is still doing great with the potty training and I couldn't be happier. We actually went out this week for the first time without a diaper bag, it was awesome. Olivia spent the night on Friday with her Grandma and Grandpa Brock and had a great time. It was funny to just be with the twins. Jon and I went out to eat with some friends on Friday and were feeling funny to just have the twins with us. It is definitely easier playing man on man defense than zone. Except the 5 trips to the bathroom over dinner. On Saturday Jon was fixing our dishwasher and the twins had to be right up in that action to see what was going on.

The other new thing is listening to the IPod. Jon got some headphone that will stay on their heads and that is the new exciting thing to do. Cody looks so funny with the headphones on.

I started getting the cold junk that is going around on Friday with the sore throat and coughing. Hopefully that doesn't turn into the really bad stuff that hangs around for weeks. It is supposed to snow here tonight, I am so ready for the nice weather. Enough of the winter already, it is depressing with not feeling well and the weather being crappy!

Monday, Monday....

So it has been a long weekend. Still extreamly sore and now I have this issue with my under arm. It feel almost like my shirt has been rubbing on my underarm, not in my arm pit, but where your shirt touches your underarm. I has been hurting since Friday and at first just burned and felt like I had my shirt to tight around that part of my underarm. So I started wearing a really loose T shirt like I did when I had radiation and putting aquaphore on that part of my underarm but it hasn't gotten any better. It still just burns. There is no actual irritation to the skin which is bizarre, not red, not chapped, nothing. I started worrying more about it yesterday when there wasn't any signs on the outside of skin irritation and called the dr. this morning. She said if I wasn't experiencing a fever and chills we didn't need to worry about infection and to just try to take it easy, put ice on that area and take Tylenol. Ah Tylenol, the wonder drug....um no. I am sure this actually does work for some people but it never seems to make a big difference for me. Still wearing loose shirts and I will try the ice today. Hopefully I will get some relief because it is a major pain. I just hope that there isn't something else going on under the skin. I will probably end up with giant streatch marks there or something. It just feels like my skin is being pulled apart. (probably because it is) Hopefully this part of it won't last the rest of the time as well. This is much worse than being sore!
Jon finished hanging all the dry wall this past weekend and clearing out all the misc stuff we had in the basement. We are having a guy come in and do all the taping, mudding and texturing this week. It is exciting to keep moving forward with the basement. Although there is still a lot left after this stuff it is finally coming together. Hopefully by the summer or end of summer it will be done.
Speaking of summer, I wish it was. It has been so windy here lately, I am ready for the warm nice weather....even though it is still a few months away.
I spoke to my sister Amy and she couldn't find her original poem about Valentine's Day but did write 2. So here is her 2nd annual Valentines Day poem and hopefully she will find her other one soon!
This is the season bemoaned of the year,
When sweetheartless singles snarl and sneer.
We celebrate an intangible human feeling
It makes me shudder to my very being.
Why love this day to represent?
I know others echo my sentiment.
Do we consecrate a day for sadness,
How about anger, envy or malice?
The love day wouldn't be half so bad
If it celebrated familial love - for mom or dad.
(I'm not bidder if that's what you've heard!)
I lack a boyfriend but I have endured.
This year I choose to concentrate
On family and friends and not on a mate.
As you can see I've changed my attitude,
I won't let this day cause a bad mood.
by: Amy Lucas

Happy Heart Day!!

Hello my blogging friends and readers. Happy Valentines Day. Sitting here writing that I am reminded of a really funny poem my sister Amy wrote back in her high school years about Valentines Day and how it was a conspiracy with Hallmark and Hershey. I am going to have to get her to copy it for me and let me post it because it was funny....tomorrow perhaps. We will doom on V.D. tomorrow. Today I love Valentine's Day because it gives me a renewed appreciation for my valentine and all the people that I love around me that I would still consider my valentines. Of course there is the obvious one, Jonathan, my loving husband and love of my life. I am so thankful to have married such a wonderful man and great father. Sorry ladies, I caught the best one out there. Good thing he loves me too since I am so high maintenance lately. Feeling like poop and all. I am also so thankful to all my wonderful family members and friends that support me through thick and thin, up and down, bald and beautiful baby! You all know who you are and you rock! Nothin but love for you guys......and hopefully for many, many, many years to come!
As much as I love y'all I am not lovin today. I woke early this morning to Alex yelling my name across the house at 6am....she had a bloody nose that had gotten all over her pillow, bed sheets, comforter, her, her hair, face, it goes on and on. Since she shares a room with her brotheO Cody he woke up also and in the mix of course Olivia is ripped from her sleep and wants to be in on the action going on at 6am. Needless to say our entire house was up and awake at 6 am. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, ever. It is just too early and the heat hasn't been set to turn up until 6:45 so tired and cold. So I finally deal with that bomb that was dropped and have everyone situated on the couch to watch some tv and give me a second to get myself dressed and cleaned up cleaning up Alex. We are behind a little at work so I have been trying to work as much as I can to help get caught up and turn on my computer, mind you my brand new computer, that I have been having issues with and the browsers weren't working. I use both firefox and internet explorer and neither would work correctly. My amazing B-I-L took my computer for me last weekend and fixed what I thought was wrong on my email program, so I thought all was finally well. Then this morning with the browser is not working correctly, I couldn't even get on to work. After going through a few things over the phone with the BIL we couldn't figure it out and I would need to get my computer to him for his expertise. I had to get out my old laptop that Jon now uses to work and try to work with what time I had left in the morning to get some work done. I just want to have my laptop that I dropped all sorts of coin on to work. Is this really asking too much? Sheesh! So there went my morning trying to find out what was wrong with my computer and then trying to get another one to work on. Good thing that my brother in law is brilliant and amazing with computers and fixes all my drama for me. He is definately on my Valentines day list today too!
So on with the middle of my day....Off to the amazing Dr. Brewster's office. Which I have been told "she is the best kept secret in Fort Collins". She doesn't advertise much until recently with the STYLE magazine. This is the local magazine that I modeled in for Breast Cancer Awareness month. She is an amazing surgeon and it certainly a plus that I also do like her a bunch. Well today she actually wasn't my favorite since it was a fill day and it hurt a bunch to fill today. On the radiated side of my body it is becoming hard and tighter with each expansion. The giant needle going into the expander didn't hurt it was getting the saline in the expander. It didn't want to accept all that fluid. She was pushing on the syringe so hard to get the fluid to fill the expander that when the fluid was going in I instantly felt like she could have been standing on my chest and jumping up and down because there was that much pressure. Not from the syringe getting pushed on but the fluid filling the expander then the pressure against my ribs and muscles and all of that radiated tissue telling me to "STOP THAT RIGHT NOW". I think if my tissues could talk they would have yelled that at me today. With reassurance from Dr. Brewster my tissues are looking healthy and taking the expansion process well. So onward and upward. Planning to keep sticking it out (even though I am in a constant state of being extremely uncomfortable) and get this process over with.

Who's Ready to Relay Baby?!?

Even thought it is only February I am getting on the ball and starting my relay for life team. Relay for Life of Loveland will be June 7th and 8th at the Budweiser Event Center. Last year it was at the Thompson Valley High School Track so this will be a new venue. The Fort Collins Relay for life says the same dates and same location so I am assuming we will all be walking together or be walking on 2 separate tracks in their parking lot. That would be neat since my health care professionals are all in Fort Collins and lots of the people I went through treatment with participate in the Fort Collins Relay. So I registered a team and we will have the same team name as last year "We Cancer-vive". I am only going to do one team this year and ask that instead of having couples sign up that you sign up as an individual and then bring your family along unless you think that you will both (as a couple) be there for most of the event. We were spread pretty thin last year because some of the team members only came for a short period of time. I think if we only do one team this year and most of us that are the actual registered team members stay for most of the time it will work a little better. If you register as a team member before March 1st the registration is only $5 and then after that it will be $10. Click here to go to the main page for Loveland Relay for Life. There are pictures there for 2007 Relay if you participated last year. I saw a few pictures with Alyssa in the back ground but not any of our team area. Just in case your interested. To sign up to relay on my team you click the join a team link at the top and select my team "We Cancer-vive". Hope to have a good team this year!

Buddy Check 9

It's that time of the month again. Give yourself a good squeeze and do your self breast exams. Here is the buddy check 9 message this month....

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you, a few days before the 14th . While most of us associate the day with sweethearts, there are many people in our lives worthy of a valentine. We all remember how important it was in elementary school to send a sweet message to every friend in our class. Well, here is another chance for you to send a message to a good friend. Please take a moment to tell someone what they mean to you, and then encourage that special someone to do a self breast exam. Your message of kindness could save a life.
Also, if you have a sister that has been diagnosed with breast cancer, consider joining the Sister Study. This involves some time commitment on your part, but how many times do we get the chance to be part of something that could lead to a cure? The goal is to get 50,000 women in the study. Researchers are looking for more African American, Latina, Asian and Native American sisters to join, as well as those over the age of 65. To learn more about the study go to http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe3415777565067a741676&ls=fdf0117575640c7a711c7776&m=fef711717d6307&l=fe8c1576766d017972&s=fdfb1572706c077f7c167475&jb=ffcf14&t=.
Until then, celebrate the friendships and relationships that make your life sweet!

Although I have been uncomfortable the last few days I have to say it wasn't as bad as last week. Still bad, but not horrible. My heating pad is still my best friend and I am still taking one pain med every 4 hours, but not 2 which is good. Jon has been working very hard on the drywall in the basement and is about 95% done. He has one wall and under the stairs to drywall still and then we will be done with that portion. It finally is coming together. I had my pampered chef party this morning and I just have to say they have some cool products. I am going to get their bamboo utensils (much better than wooden spoons), and the food chopper. This thing will chop up anything and saves a done of time with dicing or just chopping up. If anyone is interested in getting anything look at the link on my post from Thursday and shoot me an email.

Jon spent the morning with the kids and my brother Ethan and took the girls to Lollilocks. It is a place for kids to go get their hair cut. They have a puppet theatre and play area and then the kids get to sit on these chairs that look like carousel animals while they get their hair cut. Then the girls got to pick out a hair style from a picture book and they style their hair with hair clips and bands. They had a good time but it was kinda pricey. Good thing for a 20% off coupon. Here is some snapshots.

I tried to e file our taxes and there is some issue with the IRS and Jon's birthday. What a pain. I guess we will just be mailing it in. Jon has a few interested people in his Jeep and one coming to look this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed for us!!

Fill 'em up!

I went to the docs today to get my expanders filled and the status is 210 cc's on the left side and 170 cc's on the right. Remember they had to take some off on the left side after surgery so I am lop sided. But you can't really tell unless I am wearing my favorite tight shirts....just kidding! So they fill 30 cc's at a time and the goal is 250. I have a 2 weeks on one side and and 3 weeks on the other. Then I can schedule surgery about 5 weeks after that....so probably April-ish. Which is good, right before the nice weather and swimming season! I am so tired of the cold weather. Mom and I were looking at garden magazines in the docs office today and I can't wait for summer! We also talked about the type of implants I will get and I have decided to get the silicone gels rather than saline. With having no breast tissue to start out with they feel more natural than the saline. They will also look much different then the expanders. Although they have they same "volume" they are shaped different with different "projection" and width. It was the same drill after getting filled. Almost instantly the right (cancer) side was killing me. This is also the side that I have back muscle pain. I have been sitting with the heating pad on my back the entire day. I told Dr. Brewster that I was really uncomfortable all week and asked her about just doing it and getting it over with or if it was my body saying I've had enough. She reassured me that my body is tolerating the expansion process well and it was okay to keep expanding but not to get to the point where I am so uncomfortable I can't function. My plan is to keep going and not skip weeks unless Dr. Brewster says I really need to. Tough it out and keep filling and get it over with. I have been on my pain meds all day at full dosage and of course and very uncomfortable. Hopefully the next few weeks goes by quickly.
On another note I am having a pampered chef party on Saturday morning at 10am. I am sending an open invite to anyone who would like to come and bring a friend, or just yourself, come on by! If your interested in just ordering something check out the catalog online at www.pamperedchef.com and then shoot me an email at elizajonbrock@msn.com and let me know what you want to order and I will personally contact you.
Tis the season that all my "shows" are on TV. Lost started last week wich I am absolutely obsessed with and Survivor started tonight. Wow Thursdays are a busy night with me now. Ha! Hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight with the help of a full dose of Ambien!

The Night before "The Day"

It's been a week of ups and downs. Cody....finally....Cody is catching onto this potty training business. At Christmas my sister was telling me that she didn't think I was going to get off the hook very easily with potty training code. Both my girls were breifly introduced to it and then one day they just decided I am potty trained and will be wearing underwear from here on out. Alex (the older twin) has been potty trained since last May and we are still working on on Cody (the younger twin). Finally over the last week the boy is now catching on that all the "big kids" are wearing underwear and not diapers. He has worn underwear around the house here the last 3 days and only had one accident. Going both #1 and #2. YEAH! Am I finally nearing the times of the diapers?? Man I hope so! At least seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. He looks so cute with these tiny little thomas underwear on his tiny behind. What a cutie patootie.
I have still been feeling sore pretty much constantly and especially worse at night. I wake up every morning feeling like a truck ran me over or I had been outise shoveling snow all day. These "fills" are definaetly getting progressivly worse from week to week. I am going to need to talk to the doc tomorrow about if this is normal or if I am putting too much stress on my body and see what she says. If nothing else I need to get some stonger pain meds to get me through the first day or two after the fill. So that appt is tomorrow, really counting down the hours!
Last night was interesting. Alex usually starts out in my bed to go to sleep since the twins share a room and would be talking all night if we laid them down together and then I move her when I go to bed. Well I am sitting out in the living room working and hear this what I thought was a cough and then she said Mommy I threw up.....The words that every mother just loves and can't get enough of....nnnooooo! All over my duvet cover, sheets, her, her hair. Oh and bonus, we had green beans for dinner...those always look great 5 hours down the road digested and then regurgitated. So I get her in the shower get all the stuff in the washer and start getting on another pair of pj's and again...blllahhhh all over her, the bathroom floor, towel, rugs. At this point I am thinking "ok seriously why me? why is Jon working tonight and not here? Just why? In the shower again for the 2nd time, threw more stuff in the washer and got her all dried and dressed. Yacked again, but this time we made it to the toilet. Hurray! We sat up until about 12:30 on the couch while she continued to vomit on and off before getting into bed. Then of course a whole night of tossing and turning wondering if I will be yacked on in the middle of my sleep or how many times we would be up changing sheets before the sun rises. Luckly enough the squirming kid was the worst part and with me not sleeping anyway I really probably only got 2 hours of sleep. Then at 5am the smoke alarm starts chirping (out of batteries), and not just any smoke alarm the one right above my bedroom door that is on the TOP of our vaulted ceiling. Which genius decided to mount a smoke detector 12 feet in the air is definatly off my show..... After some creative stacking on a coffee table and big piece of ply wood and a ricketty old ladder Jon was able to get up to it and change the battery. Again asking myself why? seriously why? These things never happen at noon or in the morning you know when it would be convenient to fix it. Nope always in the middle of the night when you have to freeze you butt off to get out of bed to fix it and realize you don't have a ladder tall enough to get up there. Apparently we need to invest in one of those extension ladders to avoid this exact same situation from repeating itself in the future.
Today wasn't much better as Jon and I were both zombies all through the day. I get a phone call from one of my providers (doc offices) saying that they still haven't received payment from my insurance. I am not sure if I have blogged about this monstrosity of a situation or not before but a quick fill in if not. I have blue cross of CA insurance b/c my husbands companies home office is in CA. Here in CO with the providers I see have to bill my things through the CO office so it doesn't get recognized as out of network and then send it through to the CA location to get processed correctly. So in my mind if they are co-mingling filing and reporting claims they are working together, right? Wrong. Every time I have seen the doctor or had lab work done, or say um hmmm SURGERY....They send it to CO office to bill and they have been denying it saying I don't have a policy with them and not sending it on to the CA office. In turn as you can imagine this all becomes MY problem as the consumer to go back to the provider and say you filed it wrong (which most are none to happy about you telling them they are doing anything wrong) and then call both the CO office and CA office to get the full story on what is going on. Today this happened again on something they were supposed to get taken care of last month and it never was followed up on (not my me) and now the provider wants me to pay the full balance. Treating me like some indigent piece of crap with no insurance and that I don't want to give her the money I owe her. This chick was a piece of work.....I just told her I am not paying you a dime. I have insurance you can look through the many many times I have been to this office for appointments, surgiers, follow ups, and everything and say that they have always paid on these claims before but now because there is some processing issue you treat me like this? I wasn't having it. I call the CO office, NOT THEIR PROBLEM, call the CA office, NOT THEIR PROBLEM, which transfers into my problem. Well I am not havin it anymore. The next time these series of phone calls are being made the HR lady at Jon's work is going to be getting an ear full from me and a front seat to this mayhem. Pure ridiculousness. Anyway just thought I would catch up on our week, say I am feeling terrible and sore and hating this a lot. Being negative today since I am so tired.....So I am going to go to bed and hopefully be in a better mood tomorrow. Real quick here is a quick picture of Olivia in a dress we recently got as a hand me down from Alyssa. Her new "dress up" dress she puts on almost every day after school.

President Hinckley's Tribute

I am sure some have already seen this, but I thought I would share anyway. It is a video tribute to Gordon B. Hinckley with his voice over some pictures and music. His funeral was broadcast today on BYU TV. I thought the tribute was very sweet. Make sure you scroll down to the bottom to pause the music to hear the video. In 2000, the President made an address to the youth of our chuch which focused on the 6 B's. They are Be grateful, Be smart, Be clean, Be true, Be humble, Be prayerful. What great and wise advice. I love how it ends on this note.



It has been a hard few days. Going into the doctor on Thursday, I still wasn't feeling over being pretty sore at night. Still waking up rather uncomfortable and tossing and turning the last few hours of sleep. I knew going in it wasn't going to be great. I was on the maximum amount of pain pills for the rest of the day on Thursday. I was lucky that Jon didn't have work on Thursday and Friday. He worked until early Thursday morning so by the time I got home from the doctor with the kids he was up and here to help me out with the kids. I was on the couch for most of the day Thursday working. This time I started to have bad muscle pain in my back by my shoulder (on top of the normal aches and pains) so have had the heating pad there the last few days. The shooting pains have started to pop up again and I have to stop to take a deep breath while they are going on. Definetly starting to be a major bummer. Needless to say I haven't gotten much sleep the last few nights and am pretty tired and sore. Thursday night my girlfriend Nichole that I haven't seen for over a year was in town and stopped by with her baby, Christian. He is such a cutie with big blue eyes. He husband is getting done with training in the Air Force and they are being stationed in Anchorage so she will be going up there in a month or so.
Olivia was supposed to go to Salt Lake this weekend with my parents to see my sister Toni. They are blessing their baby tomorrow at church and my brother in law invited Olivia to come over and go sledding and hang out. She was very excited. Unfortunatly due to the weather and interstate road closures they ended up flying instead of driving and Olivia wasn't able to go. She was bummed. We have been able to do some fun things this weekend anyway. Jon and Cody were invited to go see the monster truck and motocross show last night with our friend Desi and his son Duncan. (look at his ear plugs) Desi's wife Aislinn decided to have a girls night for the rest of us. Olivia, Alex, and I went over there last night to hang out and play games with a group of other ladies. It was fun to visit and spend time with friends. Jon and Cody also had a lot of fun, but we were all really late getting home. Olivia had a learning fair this morning at school where the kids get to pick different workshops to attend. She went to sign language, cheerleading, raptors (one on birds), and born to be wild (about animals). She had a fun morning. It is just past 1pm and both the twins have been asleep for 20 min. I suppose that is what happens when you put your kids to bed after 10. Ha! I hope they are in a better mood when they wake up. I spent a good part of the day yesterday studying for a test I have to take for work and need to spend the afternoon on it again today. I hope that I am able to pass it. I don't think I am a very good test taker. I didn't do very well on my ACT or SAT and this is also a timed test so I am a little nervous about it. I updated some more of the monster truck pictures on my picasa site.