Appendectomy?? I Think Not!!

Day 1 (Nov 1st)

5:45am - I am awoken by the most excruciating pain in my lower right abdomen. It hurt so bad that it took almost 10 minutes just to rotate from my side to my back. I prayed that it would just go away, and managed to fall back asleep.
8:50am - I wake up once again and the pain is still there. I'm afraid to move, and really hoping it is just the worst ovarian cyst rupture I have ever had - anything but appendicitis!!
10:30am - Not quite as unbearably painful as earlier, but still hurts to move. Since I have nothing going on today, I decide to stay in bed... on my back... without moving.
1:15pm - The pain has been here for almost 8 hours and I start to freak out a little. I'm pretty certain at this point that it is, in fact, appendicitis.
1:17pm - I call my mom and express my concerns. She gives me a nurse advice number to call through insurance.
1:20pm - I call this number and they look up the policy... and inform me that it was terminated on 13 September.
1:22pm - I call my mom back and tell her what they told me and she gets mad at them and said that it was reinstated on the 14th and to call my dad.
1:25pm - I call my dad and tell him what's going on and he then realizes that he forgot to put me back on the plan and begins making the necessary calls.
1:25-2:30ish - I begin to increasingly freak out with the idea of a necessary surgery, no insurance, and $35,000+ to get my appendix removed (without insurance).
2:45 - I call Eric in tears and ask him to come home as soon as he can (he was at work).
3pm - Insanity ensues and I have 4 different people trying to call me at the same time. (my mom, my dad, Eric, and Eric's mom).
3:05pm - Eric is on his way home, and my dad calls to tell me that I am officially back on the insurance and it should be okay... but it won't show up until tomorrow... so hopefully it'll still be good for today.
3:10 - Eric calls our home teacher to come and give me a blessing.

Okay, enough with the time stamps. Our home teacher came over to help Eric give me a blessing and after the blessing he said "You know, you should talk to my wife - she's beaten appendicitis twice now!" "...Beaten it?" I asked. "Yeah, she used all sorts of crazy herbs and homeopathic stuff, but it worked!" Well this has definitely sparked my interest. He gave me his wife's phone number and as soon as he left, I called her. (Mind you, as soon as the blessing was finished, Eric and I had planned to go straight to the hospital.) I told her what was going on, she said remarks such as "Oh you poor thing!" and "That's awful!" and told me the first and more important thing is to not eat a thing. Luckily, since the thought of an impending surgery was on my mind, I had abstained from any and all foods all day anyway. Check. She also said to drink tons and tons of herbal tea - especially peppermint and the likes. Conveniently, I have a whole box of peppermint tea (herbal) in my cupboard, so I start on my journey of a tea-only diet.

About an hour later she comes over with three different combinations of herbs and a reusable tea bag to make the teas in, gives me about 10 pages worth of reading on the homeopathic solution to appendicitis and is on her way. I read the material, am fascinated by it, and then brace myself for the call to my mother where I will tell her that I am *not* going to the hospital yet. Surprisingly, she took it quite well. (yes, I know I am jumping between past and present tenses... deal with it. :) )

The next few days were awful, because I pretty much had LOTS of tea. The evening of Day 2 I finally had half an apple and it was the most glorious food I had ever tasted. The morning of Day 3 I have a very light soup, but still eat next to nothing the whole day. Day 4 I am starting to feel more like myself and actually eat a bit of solid food - some toast. By the evening of Day 4 I feel weak, but almost completely back to normal.

Eric's dad calls and invites us to the BYU basketball game that night and I am SO sick of being in the house and can finally move around again without Eric's help that I tell Eric I want to go. He is obviously concerned about this and it takes a bit of convincing that I really am up for going out, but he eventually gives in and his dad picks us up a few hours later.

The walk from the parking lot (the football parking lot across the street from the baseball stadium) to the Marriott Center was unexpected and a bit strenuous for me, but once we got to our seats, I was cautious, but fine. I even ran into a good friend and her fiance (whom I had not yet met) while we were there, so I was glad that I went.

I still ate VERY carefully the next several days to make sure I didn't aggravate it again, but I think it is officially gone!! Hurray! SO... if you ever think you have appendicitis but don't want to go to the hospital and have an appendectomy, call me and I'll walk you through it step-by-step! :D

Getting Older...?

Okay, so I know that I am by no means old, but it's still weird when people you grew up watching suddenly grow up too. haha. The most recent example of this is Melissa Joan Hart. I grew up watching "Clarissa Explains it All" (which, to clear anything up, no my name is NOT Clarissa and please do not ever ask me again to 'explain it all' (kids on my street growing up teased me about that ALL the time)) and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." But those ended and I haven't really seen her in anything until now and suddenly she went from 20 to 30 lickety-split!

I was browsing available shows on Netflix instant play (we don't have any TV channels) and one called "Melissa and Joey" popped up. I thought, "Hey, why not?" I mean, I loved Melissa Joan Hart as a kid, let's see how this show is. It's kind of like a weird mix between Who's the Boss and Two and a Half Men. Melissa's character ends up in charge of her niece and nephew after her sister and brother-in-law are sent to jail, but she's a busy working woman and can't juggle both and ends up hiring a "manny" (male nanny) to help out. So it's like Who's the Boss in the sense that he's pretty much the housekeeper, but Two and a Half Men in the sense that neither of them have a clue how to raise children.

I will admit, it is a pretty funny show. It does have more innuendo than I would like, but it is definitely way toned down to most shows these days. Probably comparable to Still Standing or Grounded for Life... (though I still miss ones like Family Matters, Step by Step, and Sister Sister, where innuendo wasn't necessary). I have only watched a few episodes, but I have already been literally laughing out loud with no one else home.

Joey Lawrence in "Blossom"

By the way, the male nanny is Joey Lawrence, from "Blossom" and "Brotherly Love", whom I also have a hard time seeing as essentially a 'father figure' when all I can remember him saying was "Whoa!" (a clip would make it so much better) as a goofy teenager! I love the banter between the two, though. And he does a pretty good job as the pseudo dad.


I'm curious though, if they ever save and essentially "reuse" old sets (or parts of old sets) from sitcoms, because their set is like a combination of Reba and Boy Meets World. But that thought had absolutely zero relevance to the rest of the entry...

Anyway, another short and sweet entry. I find the show rather amusing and seeing as how it is still currently on the air, I hope it actually lasts more than a couple seasons...!

Dishwashers!!!

I got a dishwasher, I got a dishwasher, I got a dishwasher hey hey hey HEY!

Yes, we picked up a portable dishwasher today from someone in Eagle Mountain (about 20-25 minutes away). Thanks to good 'ol KSL classifieds always finding the best deals! I can't even begin to tell you how extremely THRILLED I am to finally have a dishwasher!! I love my place (and will love it even more when we get it all painted!) but the biggest downside was that amidst our huge kitchen, there was no dishwasher. :(

But that has now changed! I have never been so excited to actually do the dishes! haha. Okay, so I guess it's not really "doing the dishes" when all I'm doing is putting them into a dishwasher, but it counted for me! I've been hand-washing ALL of our dishes for over a year now and I was sooo dang sick of it! You don't realize how much you take things like that for granted until you don't have one anymore. My kitchen is going to be SO much cleaner all the time now - I guarantee it!

Anyway, short and sweet entry - hurray for dishwashers!! :D

Natural Remedies

You know, you learn a lot of really bizarre things when you are constantly searching for home remedies of every imaginable ailment! See, I don't have insurance... and each time I go to the doctor's it costs about $100, so I'm going to do everything in my power to make it so I don't have to go. Because of that, I have learned some really interesting "remedies." Some that seem to work really well, and others that make you say, "...really?"

Poor little guy...

For example, yesterday my ear started hurtin' something fierce. It definitely felt like an ear infection, but alas - I was trying to avoid that whole doctor route. So I began my home remedy search. Want to know one of the most common suggestions? Onions. Yes, onions. Several sites that I found said to cut an onion in half, heat it just slightly, wrap it with some old t-shirt fabric and put it on your ear for about 30 minutes. Weird, huh? Well, these days I will try just about anything - especially if multiple sites advocate it. So I chopped an onion in half, put it in the microwave, cut a piece of cloth from ratty old t-shirt, and put it on my ear!

The warmth from it actually felt really nice, and after about 30 minutes I took it off and it didn't hurt anymore! Buuut then about 10 minutes later it started hurting again. Drat. Maybe I'm supposed to do it multiple times a day. But I already felt weird enough holding a half-onion to my ear, so I decided to forgo that option.

Here's another interesting remedy... if any of you have eczema problems, try this one. Mix some olive oil with a few drops of tea tree oil and massage it onto the affected area, the way you would with lotion. 

Oh, tea tree oil is one of my new best friends. It seems to be a cure for everything!! I also use it on zits. I especially hate those threatening zits that you KNOW are there, you can feel them, but there is just nothing there to pop and you just have to wait the wretched amount of time before you can actually get rid of them. Well, before I go to bed, I wash my face off and then use a q-tip to put some tea tree oil on and dab each red spot on my face. 9 times out of 10, the spots are gone by morning. I've also heard that toothpaste does similar things, but I've tried that and all it seems to do for me is make a mess on my pillows...

Have any of you ever gurgled apple cider vinegar? I'm pretty sure it is the worst tasting thing in the world, but my grandma (Brown) swears by it. When I was younger, I didn't believe her... I think mainly because I didn't want to go near that vile bottle of nastiness. But when I no longer had insurance, I was willing to try just about anything. If I started gurgling that stuff when I felt the slightest tickle in my throat, it worked wonderfully!! It also seems to help clear phlegm out of your throat in no time. Granted, you have to do it a couple of times a day, but it definitely helps... much to my chagrin. I think I am building up an immunity to it, though - it didn't taste quite so vomitous last time I used it.

Also, garlic is a natural anti-bacterial. I always have a bottle of garlic pills on hand for when I start to feel sick. Also a miracle worker is echinacea ... which, I am rather confused right now why the dictionary doesn't recognize echinacea... weird. Anyway, zinc is amazing as well, as is - of course - vitamin c.

Oh!! Another weird home remedy I discovered last night is that of ibuprofen. Well, substitutes for it I mean. There's a whole list of foods that have natural anti-inflammatory as well as foods that are best to avoid when in pain. These ones below are the pain reducer foods. The other foods are in the link.

apples	apricots	avocados	bananas
beans	beets	berries	broccoli
cabbage	cantaloupe	carrots	cauliflower
celery	chard	cherries	cucumber
currants	dates	figs	garlic
ginger	grapes	kale	lettuce
mangoes	melons	mushrooms	olives
papaya	parsley	peaches	pears
peppers	potatoes	pumpkin	radish
raisins	soybeans	spinach	squash
sweet potatoes	turnips

Anyway, these are a few random 'natural remedies' I have discovered in the last few years. I'm sure I will discover more in the near future!!

A Cool New Way to Save Recipes

Okay, so I am still trying to get into the habit of writing more often. As you can see, not doing so hot yet! But hey, this is my third one in the same month! (just don't think about the fact that it's the last day of the month...)

I thought I'd share with you what I have been doing recently.

So, when I was little, I remember my mom always having a 3x5 box of recipes that she'd acquired from all over the place. Any time we cooked anything, she had me find the recipe in the box. I have several friends and family who keep all of their recipes in a big binder and I did try that, but it just didn't feel like... home. I guess we like what we know, and I definitely know 3x5 recipe cards.

That being said, while I wanted to transfer my favorites to 3x5 cards, I sure as heck did not want to spend hours upon hours writing them. I'd still rather type them and transfer them. Plus, regular 3x5 cards are so... boring! I wanted some with a little pizzazz!

I thought it would be fun to find some recipe templates online, but goodness gracious are they hard to find!! And what I mean is that ones that are free from lines or words. Just a cute design where I can do what I want with the rest.

Ultimately, I'm pretty sure that the route I took has already taken WAY more time than it would have just to write them all out by hand, but I guess I do have a lil creative juice in me after all and quite enjoyed myself while putting these cards together. I even downloaded a ton of really fun fonts to choose from!


I must admit that several of these recipes I have yet to try - they just looked so good that I knew I would want to try them... and soon!

So how did I do this? Actually, after being fed up with stupid recipe creator sites that wanted to charge me to do something I knew I was capable of doing, I said to heck with it. I opened up PowerPoint and never looked back. Turns out, you can save PowerPoint slides as pictures!

But where on earth was I going to find a place that actually prints 3x5 pictures? Pretty much every place has 4x6 and then a wallet size. WELL... after doing even more research, I found this awesome little site called mpix.com and they will print not only a 3.5x5 but a 4x5! I'm not entirely sure what a 4x5 is for, but hey! they have odd sizes. Hurray for the unusual!

So once I get a big chunk of them made up, I am going to upload them as individual pictures, have them printed off as 3x5s and voila! you have eggs! Sorry, that last part was an inside joke with my family.  

Also, this site is extras awesome because they have different print options that actually apply to what I want to print off. If I wanted a regular "high quality" picture it would be $0.29 per 'photo', but I really don't care if it is glossy or not, and there is an option that doesn't do color correction or gloss and it's only $0.19/ea instead! What did I say before? Oh yeah - hurray for the unusual!

Anyway, these are just a few of the ones that I have done so far. I think I've done about 30 at the moment, and I have awesome templates that I want to use for probably another 60. It's a fun lil hobby to have. :D

So if any of you have any absolutely AMAZING dishes and would like to share the recipe with me, I'll make it up like one of these and then give you a copy afterwards. I'm always looking for new recipes... so go ahead and comment, email, or facebook me with yours!! :)

10 Year Anniversary

September 11th, 2001

World War III here we come. Today started out as any other day... until 3rd period in Mr. Chirhart's class. We were in the middle of a hard drive lab and Mr. Wiz comes in quietly, talks to Mr. C. for a few minutes, quietly leaves, and then out of the blue Mr. C. asks, "Anyone know anyone that works at the World Trade Centers?" We all looked around at each other and said "No...?" He said "Good - because a plane just crashed into one."

We were all like "what?!" and completely shocked. Then we weren't too in to our lab and he turned on the TV and we turned it on thinking we were watching the replay of the crash only to realize we were seeing a second crash live into the other tower. Now we were REALLY surprised and completely dumbfounded or tongue-tied.

We just sat there in silence watching the TV not really knowing what to do or say, and after a while, they showed us on TV that a third plane had just hit the Pentagon; but when Angie heard that, she started freaking out and saying - almost crying - "No! They did NOT just hit the Pentagon!! My DAD works IN the Pentagon!" After that she was really quiet and I didn't really know what to do or say.

From then on Mr. C. was really quiet too because he was trying to get a hold of his dad-->who also works in the Pentagon. He let Angie use his phone a few times too, but the phones were so jammed up nationwide, that it was impossible. Mr. C. looked like he was about to cry, too. I felt really bad for both of them but there was nothing I could do.

Then the bell rang and we all walked out still really stunned, yet spreading the word because not very many people had any idea what was going on yet. They were all just as shocked as us and as I got into class (Health, 5th period), I was like "Coach Mac, did you hear what happened?!?!" She said she had, but I could tell she didn't know the whole story.

We didn't do much in Health today either - just watched the news the entire class period. By 7th period, half the kids had been pulled out of school by their parents. It took me almost 2 hours to get home on the bus because there was so much traffic and chaos.

I found out later that Hayley's dad worked in the wing of the Pentagon that was hit, but he luckily was in another room watching the news when it hit, so he wasn't there, thank goodness.

-------------------------------

That was my entry on September 11th. Granted, it is written by a 15-year-old girl with lots of "we were like/they were like", but these words were what came to my mind on that day. I wish I had written more, because I was definitely feeling a lot more.

School was cancelled the next day. Two boys in our school lost their mother, and I'm sure several other surrounding schools lost someone too. There were several people in our ward who worked in the Pentagon at that time, but all were lucky and weren't in the area that was hit. I remember that bus ride... the longest bus ride in the world. Part of me wanted to just get out and walk because it seemed like it might be faster...I just wanted to get home!

On top of all of that, it was my poor father's birthday... not so happy of a birthday anymore. :/ It's really weird calling to say "Happy Birthday Dad!" when everyone else is somber and reflective.

Last September, I had the opportunity to travel to NYC for work and one of our interviewees was directly involved with some of the rescue attempts. He told us how he went under the rubble to search for survivors and he heard 3 taps (which was the response signifying "I'm here! Someone is here!") and wanted so badly to find him, but right at that point, everyone was evacuated from the area because it was unstable. They waited the obligatory time, but by the time he got back down there, the taps were gone. He never found the person. It was heart-wrenching to hear him tell the story through streams of tears. I can't even imagine what that would have been like to be there and KNOW someone down there was still alive, but not be able to save him before it was too late.

I don't really have a solid ending for this entry. Just a reflective entry, I suppose. One thing I do want to mention though is: support our troops. You can be totally against the war itself if you so choose, but don't turn your back on our troops. Whether you like it or not, there is a war going on and our people are over there fighting every day to preserve our freedom.

I am PROUD to be an American. I hope you are proud as well.

My Wonderful New Toy :D

For those of you who don't know, for years now I have wanted to get into photography. Any time a friend of family member has a DSLR, I eagerly offer to take the pictures for whatever the occasion. However, these cameras are extremely expensive and I've never had that kind of money to blow... BUT... thanks to some birthday money, some money I'd saved up, and selling a few things on KSL, I was finally able to afford one!!!

I got the most entry-level DSLR you can get (Canon Rebel XS), but hey... I am quite pleased with it. Also, since I have a ton of friends in photography (comes with the territory of working in film) I sought out many opinions on cameras and lenses. I initially was going to buy this awesome package deal online that came with the camera body, two lenses, a carrying case, a tripod, a memory card and card reader, a battery and battery charger, and a few other odds and ends. It sounded like a good deal... but right before I bought that one, I ended up chatting with another photography friend who told me that those lenses are "pretty much crap." He said that they were the stock lenses, cheaply made, and wouldn't last as long. So, I told him my budget and he recommended two different lenses instead.

Thanks to the beauty of Amazon, I was able to buy everything separately and pay almost the exact same thing. (I didn't get ALL of the odds and ends that the package had, but I got most of them). But instead of the 'crappy' lenses, I now have two very nice ones! Well... one at the moment. The other one still hasn't come yet...grr. Actually, about half the stuff still hasn't come yet; but I suppose that's to be expected - I only ordered it this past Thursday.

To my surprise the body, 50mm lens, and memory card all came on Saturday - just two days after I placed the order! However, I thought that the body came with a battery and much to my dismay, I was incorrect in that assumption. Luckily, (and thanks to facebook) I was able to locate a spare battery from a friend of mine and am using that til the end of this week. He saved me!! It was *torture* having the camera but not being able to use it!

I went out for quite some time yesterday and photographed a ton of flowers at the nearby cemetery. I don't know if this is a Utah-only thing or if Virginia is just weird, but here, Memorial Day seems to be treated more as a blanket "remember your loved ones who have died" day rather than honoring veterans and those who died in war. Anyway, for that reason the graves here are covered with flowers on Memorial Day. And it had also been raining 3 days straight at this point and I really wanted to catch the water droplets on the flowers before it all dried up.

I then spent about 2 hours today up the canyon becoming better friends with my camera. I'm still not a pro at the right shutter speed and aperture, but I feel that I am catching on rather quickly. Only time will tell. :P

Anyway, the pictures that are scattered throughout this post and below are some of the ones I have taken in the last 2 days. If you want to see all of them, just go to my facebook profile and the link should be right there. :)

PS, now that I have a reason to post again, expect more frequent posts from now on. :D