Dilema

Well I would say that it is about time to do another post. I am thinking of making it a goal to try and blog once a week at least. Since the new year, Jonah and I have been pretty busy. We were called to be the Primary teachers for the 5 year olds in our ward. It has been interesting. As you know, Jonah and I don't have kids, so it has been a bit of a challenge for us. I think it would be a challenge for anyone, considering that we have 12 kids in our class. :) I am willing to admit that I was not the most excited to be teaching Primary. I was very nervous being entrusted with the education of these little kids. Plus I was very nervous about being able to keep their attention. It's hard enough to keep the attention of one five year old, let alone 12. Luckily, I have the tools I need to help me become a better teacher. By tools, I mean my mother. She has been a primary chorister forever it feels like, so she had a lot of ideas that I am going to try out and see if they work for my kids. I am having a change of heart about my Primary calling. I am finding that I am viewing the church and the gospel through the simple eyes of a child. It is amazing how much I can learn from the simple comments that the kids will give on the lesson. Why do adults have to go and make things so complicated. The kids are the ones that have it down. :) Along with our new Primary calling, Jonah and I have spent a lot of time being sick, back and forth. We have both had the flu, then Jonah got bronchitis, and after that I got a neuro virus. It has been pretty miserable, and I am hoping that we got our sick time taken care of for the year. Two months of being sick is way too much. Once we were over our sick spells, we had something unexpected happen. My aunt Carol passed away. It was a surprise to everyone. I am thankful that I was able to attend her funeral. She was a wonderful lady. Now I want to vent about something a little personal, so I hope you don't mind. Heck, maybe you can give me some of your advice. Jonah and I really want to get moved to St George. We are both very tired of the weather and air quality up here, and I really want to be down there with my family. I miss them everyday. I hate that I miss out on the little family get togethers. I hate that I miss out on all my niece's and nephew's activities. Here are the few issues we have. First off, we don't have jobs down there, and they are hard to come by. Second, we have two homes up here that we need to worry about renting out. Third, and most difficult for me, I am emotionally ready to have kids now. However, I am not quite there physically, and if we move to St George, we won't be there financially either. I am torn at what I should do. I am ready to start a family, but I want to share it with my family and be able to be with them in St George, but it seems that I can't have my cake and eat it too. What to do. What to do.

REUNITED

So my good friend Tracy got married!!! I was really glad that I was able to go to her wedding ceremony, and reception. It was a great day for her. I also was able to meet up with an friend that I have not seen in years!! It was so good to see Jana and her little busy body, Grady. I can honestly say that I had such a great time, and I am truely happy for Tracy and Jake on their marriage! Congrats guys!

NEW HOUSE!!!

We are happy to announce that Jonah and I are taking the next step in our lives and buying our second house. We are very excited. We have been trying to buy for a long time, and nothing was working out. We finally caught a break, and our offer was accepted on this really cute house in Spanish Fork. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath. It's a little smaller than our condo, but it has a garage and yard for the dogs! There are a few things that will need to be fixed on the house, but nothing too big. We have a couple sinks to fix and a dishwasher. We are set to close on the house on October 17th!! I am very excited, but sad as well. I am sad to be leaving our ward. I have been lucky to be in such a great ward. I love our home teachers, and my visiting teachers so much. Our bishop has been one of the best. I have always felt that he truly cares for everyone, and goes out of his way to help whenever he can. We have started packing up a few things, and it still seems like we have not even made a dent! I am not excited for the actual moving. I will be excited when it is all over. I will be sure to post pictures when we get everything moved in and settled!

Progress In Progress

So one month since my last post. I have made some more progress. I have been going to the gym with Jonah about 4-5 times a week now. The treadmill has gotten a little to easy for me, so I moved to the eliptical and that has been working very well. We are continuing our training sessions with Nathan, and he is kicking my butt! We had a sessiong last night and worked on our shoulders and chest. I could barely steer the wheel to drive home! I guess that is what I get for not doing anything for four years. I have my 6 month follow up appointment with my surgeon in two weeks. I am very excited, and I am hoping for good news. I hope he tells me that the fusion is progressing and I hope that he tells me I can bend! Jonah and I are both ready for that to happen. I am sure he is tired of picking everything up that I drop :) Jonah has been working a lot of overtime the last two weeks. He looks ready for a break. My brother finally got a job closer to home, and he was able to move out of our place and back to St George with his kids. I am very excited for him, and I am excited to have our house to ourselves again :). I don't think that it is wrong to admit that. We lived by ourselves for a year before my cousin moved in with us, and about a month after my cousin moved out, my brother moved in. I don't think there is any shame in admitting I want my house to myself for a while. I was very happy that Jonah and I were in a position to help my cousin and my brother though, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. On a side note... IT'S FOOTBALl SEASON AGAIN!!!! I have missed it so. I may have enjoyed watching my Broncos beat the Steelers last week a little to much!! Lol. I am hoping to be able to go to a game this season in Denver with my sisters. I ahve been to a game in Oakland and I took an oath NEVER to go back there again. I feared for my life at that game. Jonah and I are still looking at houses and trying to find one to buy. We put an offer in on one that we both really wanted. We offered a lot over asking price and we were still beat by someone. There have not been many new houses put on the market lately, so we have run out of prospective houses for now. We will most likely not be able to get a house this year. I am hoping that some more houses will come on the market next year that are in our price range. We did look at a house last night that was ok. It had been completly remodeled, but not very well in my opinion. The floors were very uneven, which I know comes with the territory of buying an old house, but I figured if you remodeled you would at least try to fix that. It did not have any sort of air conditioning, and they did not even put vents in the floors or ceilings. I would have thought this day in age that if you were updating the house you would at least put vents in. The one thing that really bugged me about the house though was the fact that they put the hook ups for the washer and dryer in the BATHROOM!!! I wouldn't mind so much if the bathroom were big enough for it. If we were to put our washer and dryer in there, no one would be able to get into the bathtub! So that is one of our adventures in house hunting. I hope things start to look up and we are able to find a house we both like and are able to afford

Off To The Gym We Go

So Jonah and I are now official members of Golds Gym. I am pretty excited about it. I still do not have the clearance from my surgeon to do a whole lot, but I can walk, swim, and do a recumbent bike. I can do a tiny amount of weight lifting but that is a pushy subject. So we met with our trainer today and as I figured, Jonah and I are on completly different playing fields. He needs to put on about as much weight as I need to loose. It's really kind of sad. I am really hoping that doing this with a trainer and having access to the gym will get me to the next step of recovery. I only wish that I was able to do more at this point and I am trying as hard as I can to be patient. I am very excited to be exercising again!! I never thought that I would say that lol. WIsh us luck in our journey!!

The Big One

So many of you may already know that back on April 6, 2012 I had a lumbar disc fusion surgery on my back. I had been suffering from a degenerative L4 L5 disc and it had been causing me a lot of pain for almost 4 years. I was dealing with it pretty well up until Jonah and I were in a car accident in December 2011. We were getting on the freeway and hit a patch of black ice and slammed into a cement barrier. Ever since that accident my back pain was out of control. I finally got to the point that I was ready to have the surgery done because nothing else was working. I had the surgery done at Timpanogas Hospital and I will be completely honest, I was really nervous. The only surgery I had every had up to this point was my wisdom teeth. Im not even sure I would qualify that as a surgery lol. We had to be at the hospital at 530 in the morning. They prepped me and put the IV in my arm. After that all I had to do was sit and wait for them to take me to the operating room. My surgeon came in and talked with me for a few minutes and then the anesthesiologist came in and explained what would happen. He then told me to kiss Jonah goodbye. He started to inject the medicine and wheel me into the hall and that is the last thing that I remember before I woke up in the recovery room. I remember that I had a lot of nurses yelling at me to wake up and take deep breaths. I remember that I was crying cause I was in a lot of pain. They kept trying to ask me what my pain level was and I was having a hard time telling them because they had just taken the tube out of my throat not to long before. I was finally able to mutter the word TEN! I don't remember much after that at all. The next four days in the hospital are gone from my memory. I can recall bits and pieces but nothing real big. Jonah was kind enough to take some photos that I will share with you.

I was able to go home and the first couple days were a blur. I dont really remember much of the ride home or getting up the stairs even. All I have to say is thank goodness for modern medicine. From what I have been told I was pretty miserable and I should be glad that I dont remember much of it. After I had been home a few days I started to remember more. I was still drugged up on percocets and they made me super tired. I was sleeping a lot. I was told that I needed to walk as much as I could. Well, I live on the 3rd floor of a condo complex and so I was not up to tackling the stairs just yet. So for the first week I would walk up and down my breezeway. It wasn't much but at least it was something. I had to use a walker as well. I had to have my mom or Jonah help me with pretty much everything. Getting up, sitting down, getting dressed, taking a shower, getting into bed,and pretty much anything that required any type of movement.

Being unbandaged for the first time. My incision with the stapels My mom was able to stay and help me and Jonah out for about 2 weeks and it was a huge help. She had bought things for me to help make getting around and picking stuff up easier to do on my own. She helped clean our house and cook meals and a whole lot more. After a few weeks she had me pretty well set up to be able to get by with the basics on my own, or at least for a few hours at a time so I could manage until Jonah got home from work for his breaks and stuff. My mom and Jonah said that I was making quick progress. By the time my mom left I was able to walk to the end of the street and back with my walker. I would say that is pretty good for two weeks post a major back surgery.

Incision the day before I got the staples removed

Right after the staples were taken out

A size comparison of how big my incision is

My mom and I had a walker race! Guess who won!!

My mothers version of handicapped parking lol It is now just over three months after my surgery. I still can not bend or twist at all but I am able to walk 2 miles a day with no walker and no brace!! I am back to work full time and I am able to do most everything on my own. Jonah is still nice enough to help me with the things I can't quite do yet but I am hoping I will be able to soon. I am starting physical therapy next week as well. I am also down to 1 or 2 5mg pain pills a day opposed to 6 of the 10mg dosage a day that I started on. I am really excited about that. The Progress of My Incision Healing

An XRAY of the hardware in my back

So that is the basics of my surgery. I am still recovering and I have a long ways to go still. But my pain now is so much better than it was before and I am able to do more now than I have been able to for a long time. I am so blessed that I was able to get this surgery done and that so far it has had good results.

Starting Over

I have decided that I want to start a new blog. I have not posted on our other one for so long that it almost seems like another lifetime :) A lot has happened in the Richmond household since then. I will be playing catch up on this blog for a while til we can get everything in. I hope you enjoy!!