December Madness

This month has been super crazy and I haven't felt much like blogging. But I want to catch up on the things that have been occurring.

We decided to do a fundraiser earlier this month and had to quickly get it put together. My friend Grace has put most of it together. She even made a website and everything! If you want to visit it you can go here to view it.
The website gives a lot of details about why we are doing this. We made a bunch of fun goodies and had a bunch of donations from other people but while we were planning this a sad event happened. My friend Spencer died due to some complications with CF. He fought a long time and did so well. He just couldn't do it anymore and now he is breathing easy. Here is his obituary. This was devastating news but we proceeded with our fundraiser and still made it to his viewing and funeral. It was a weekend full of mixed emotions. We were so happy to see how much our friends and family support us and our decision to have a baby and it was sad and painful to let go of a dear friend. 

Anyway...we ended up making almost half of our goal. We want to raise about $3,000 for the genetic testing we have to do. If we make more than that we will donate it to the CF Foundation. I can't express how much everyone helping out means to me. It has just been incredible having the response we've had. It makes me so happy. I feel like our dream is in reach! 

Also, school is over for the semester and that was keeping me busy too. Next semester will be my last semester of college! Woot woot! =) I am so excited! I will be doing an internship at the hospital I currently work in on the psychiatric unit. It is going to be a crazy semester because along with work four, ten hour shifts I will also be working my current job three times a week for twelve hours! So that is everyday! Let's hope I survive!

Now for my hubby, he's been working at ARUP for the past three months and so far he has been liking it. It has been really good for our little family! He is working night shifts and sleeps all day so we don't see each other as much as we used to. But I am glad that he has a job and is liking it. 

His health has been pretty good since he got out of the hospital in October but lately he has been having chest pain. We saw the doctor and she was convinced it was muscle related. So we dodged having to be admitted to the hospital over the holidays. We have to go back though to make sure that is all it was. 

That's all for now! I will try and be better about updating things throughout the IVF process and all that good jazz. Hope everyone has a fabulous holiday!! =)

IVF

I'd like to clarify some things about our pursuits to have a baby and I thought a blog would be the best way to do it. 

At this point in time, I am not pregnant but we are trying to be. The only way we can achieve this is through in vitro fertilization. We are going to apply for a grant that will cover most of the process. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover all of it. We have to do something called preimplantation genetic diagnosis or PGD for short. This test will take a cell from the embryos and determine whether they will have CF or not. This test is something we have to pay for out of pocket and up front. 

Because of this we want to do a fundraiser so we can get the process started sooner rather than later. A couple of friends have given me ideas but I don't know exactly how to get this started. They gave me the idea of doing a bake sale type deal and another friend gave me the idea to make different kinds of popcorn, which is in the works. 

I posted a status earlier to see what people would be willing to donate or help with and I got a lot of baked goods and crafts. So I was thinking of doing a combined craft/bake sale. I really appreciate everyone's willingness to help us because we really want to make this happen. We are also thinking about doing a cash "gift" registry so if people just want to donate money.

I really hope to get some of this stuff going in the next couple of weeks before Christmas comes so please stay tuned. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask either of us. We are pretty open about this matter. =)

Hospital (Sept-Oct)

So as most of you know, Adam got admitted to the hospital. The last time he was in was May but he has been feeling crappy since August. At the beginning of August he started a new job and we tried hard to keep him out as long as possible. I didn't want him to lose his job so soon. Maybe it was a bad idea for him to stay out so long because on Wednesday when he did his PFT's they were down to 47! They have never been that low. Tomorrow he does his week 1 PFT's. I hope that they have bounced back up. Also, Adam's birthday was on Saturday. I tried so hard to make it a good day.

As I am writing this, Adam got discharged. It was a crazy couple of weeks and I forgot about it! Oh man. So I will update this as much as possible. First, Adam did his week one PFT's and they went up to 55. I thought this was pretty good but the doctor was surprised they didn't go up higher and she decided to put him on another antibiotic. His two week PFT's were about the same as week one. They were up to 56 which is where is has been at for the most part. The doctors let us go home which I am glad that they did. I couldn't spend another day in that hospital and I think Adam was feeling the same. The one nice thing about being at the hospital was we were able to hang out with Nikki a bunch. I am sure she is going crazy from being up there every day. 

Anyway...so now we've been home for a day and a half. It's been so nice. 

(This is a sign the Gifford's made us! They are our downstairs neighbors.)

I had an interview with two ladies on the psychiatric unit in University Hospital. I am pretty sure I got it too! =) Then, we walked around downtown yesterday, started our own phone plan together and I got an iPhone, then we went out to dinner. Today, we slept in, lazed about, and FINALLY decorated for Halloween!! 

I posted pictures last year of our decorations so I won't do all of them again this year. I will just put the new ones I got! =)

(I've really been into owls lately!)

(This is obviously not a Halloween decoration but I bought this while I was out one day and didn't get to put it up until we got home! I love my Utes!)

(My mother-in-law bought this little guy for me! He is so cute!)

I hope that things now will get back to normal. =) Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the fall! =)

Yay!

Last week on Monday, I got a phone call from my friend Nikki at around 11:00 am. She informed me that Spencer (her hubby and my friend) was rushed to the hospital due to low oxygen saturation. Since Nikki doesn't have any family here other than Spencer's family who all live kind of far away, I headed up to the hospital to be with her. Hours past before we really knew what was going on besides that he had a collapsed lung that was pushing against his heart. The CF doctor came in and told Nikki that Spencer might not make it through the night. They were worried that he had an infection that he would have to fight on his own until the antibiotics kicked in. It was possibly the most frightening thing I have ever heard and I can't even imagine what Nikki was going through. I have a little bit of an idea since Adam has CF as well but we have never been in that scary territory. We started asking for people to pray for Spencer and Nikki.

 Anyway...Spencer's family and Adam came up to keep us company while we waited. It was 5:00 pm or so before Nikki could go back and see him. I didn't see him until after shift change and after I took Adam to work. So it was about 9:00 pm when I saw him. They had him hooked up to a ventilator, chest tubes, IV's, you name it he was probably hooked up to it. It was kind of a scary reality in a way. Nikki stayed over at our house because we live really close to the hospital and they live in Layton, which is about 30 minutes from here. I wanted her to be close in case something happened. I had a restless night for the most part but no phone calls all night. Needless to say, it was a rough week. 

BUT today, I received good new from Nikki! Spencer is now off the ventilator and is breathing on his own! Yesterday, he was awake, alert, able to sit up and stand! I can't believe what a miracle this is and I honestly feel like it was because of all the prayers that people said. People from all over the country were praying and keeping Spencer and Nikki in their thoughts. It was the most amazing thing to see the power of prayer at work. I just want to say that I am thankful to have these two in my life. Nikki and I can lean on each other when our husbands are sick and that is the best thing to have because a lot of people don't understand what it really means to be a CF wife. Also, I want to thing all the girls in the CF Wives group! They were there in a sense to help Nikki through this scary time. And to everyone else that prayed and kept them in their thoughts. ♥ 

I am so thankful for my husband for being there with us! And to Jody for bringing us food and drinks! It was super helpful. 

Happy Fall Ya'll

My favorite season has arrived!!! I am so happy that the fall is finally here! I love the smells, the holiday's, the colors, the sports and the weather.

This last week was kind of rough for everyone and I am just glad that it is over and now fall is here. It definitely puts me in a better mood.

Oh my geez!

I named this Oh my geez because family history work is a blast and confusing and a little frustrating all at the same time.

Adam and I promised my grandma a while ago that we would work on her family history about a year ago. I never really got a prompting to do it until today. My grandma had given us the stuff she already had and we were to continue it but we have no idea what happened to it. So we got some names from my mom and went from there. We've only started searching on the web and hopefully will be able to get downtown to the family history library because I am having a blast. The only thing is you can't always find what you need on the internet. Geesh. It is really neat to see where you came from though. =)

Speaking of the past, my mom has also been bugging me to clean out my old room. So today I went up to Ogden to do just that. It was fun because I kept pretty much everything I ever did when I was younger. I found stuff from when I was living in Pennsylvania and lots of stuff from living here in Utah. Probably my favorite thing that I found was my pogs! If you don't remember pogs, here's a picture.

Also, I found some journals I had to keep at school and they were super fun to read. I was a horrible speller and loved my first grade teacher. I also talked a lot about a friend of mine named Jonathan. He moved to New Jersey before I moved to Utah and I haven't been able to find him which is sad to me. I would like to find him one day.

Anyway...hope everyone had a good Labor Day!! =)

P.S. 2 more months until we can apply for our IVF grant.

New season!

The Utes football season started today!! =) 

I am super excited and bummed because Adam and I didn't get any tickets this year. 

Anyway...they are still fun to watch on the TV.

They won today against Montana State! 27-10!

I think that is a pretty good start for their first season in the PAC 12! 

Next week is their real test of being in the PAC 12. 

I hope they can kick USC's butt! 

Good luck Utes! Make me proud! =)

Now if only the Broncos were doing the same thing tonight! =P