My Nightmare Drive

As some of you know, the day Denise had her accident Eric told me that Tick is terminally ill with kidney problems. I had taken her into the vet the day before because she had blood in her urine. Eric says that she has kidney stones and because of her advanced age he doesn't recommend surgery, and I agree. Basically I am just waiting for her to act like she is in pain, or to stop eating. So far she acts just fine and she is as ravenous for treats as she has always been. He gave me some antibiotics and told me that if she improved on the medication I could just call him for some more when she started bleeding again.

Yesterday when I came home from work I took her for a walk down the block and noticed that the blood in the urine had returned. It was snowing hard and I really didn't want to go out and drive in that mess, but I decided that I didn't want to wait 24 hours to start the antibiotics. I called the office and told them that I was coming to pick up the medicine, packed Tick into the car, and started out. The receptionist at the Vet's office told me that the freeway was shut down in both directions in Layton due to accidents, so I took the back roads.

I left my house at 3:50, and it took me 10 minutes to drive three blocks. It took me 20 minutes to get to Mutton Hollow, and then traffic picked up and I thought that the rest of my drive would be a breeze. I turned onto Antelope Drive at 4:25, and that is where traffic pretty much came to a stop. I still wasn't too worried. The Vet's office closes at 5:30, so I figured that I had an hour to drive about three miles, and surely it couldn't take me that long to get there. As traffic inched along, and the time passed, I began to get worried. At 5:12 I was stuck in front of Lowes, and I knew that there was no way that I would get over the overpass by 5:30. I couldn't bear the thought that this whole ordeal had been in vain, so I pulled my car into the junior high parking lot, and I jumped out and started to run. While stopped at a traffic light I pulled my phone out and called the Vet's office and begged them not to leave before I got there. According to Map Quest my run was approximately one mile, and there were about 4 inches of snow on the ground. I got to the Vet's office at 5:30 exactly, picked up Tick's antibiotics and began the long walk back to my car. By the time I got back to my car 2o minutes later the freeway must have opened, because traffic had thinned out considerably. I got home at about 6:20, so the round trip that should have taken me 20 minutes on a good day took 2 and a half hours.

The good news is that I didn't see any blood in Tick's urine today. The bad news is that working out on the eliptical may be the same motion as running, but running is much harder on the body. My legs are so stiff I can barely move!

Tilley Family Christmas Party

So, as usual, I was the only person to represent our family at the Tilley Family Christmas party. I was there for hours and hours, and I didn't think to take a single picture.



It was nice to chat with everyone. Michelle and Nick were visiting, and so were Dave and Bree. Cameron and Austin were very busy chasing Michelle's dog Soba around with a squirt bottle. Apparently they were told that they could squirt her if she barked. The only real news from the party is that Jared and his girlfriend Julie will be getting married on January 31st.



I gave our blog addresses to Dave, Michelle, and Debbie, so there may be a few new readers for the blogs this coming year.

Christmas in Kaysville

We were able to leave the hospital at noon, so we threw together a family get together later that afternoon.

Denise did a lot of sleeping.

Of course, the little girls were the most excited about Christmas.

I gave them some crafts, so they immediately had to strip down and paint.

As soon as the painting was done, they had to hop into the tub.
Then after dinner the adults got to open their presents.
The highlight of my evening was that Keaton got a plastic electric saw for Christmas, and he spent the evening chasing the girls through the house with it. You can't get more Christmasy than that!

Update

As for the broken bone....sorry. I got it wrong. It is the bone above her eye. However, the scan was done last night and the plastic surgeon never got back to us, so apparently it isn't a big deal.

She has been moved out of ICU and she can have visitors. She is in the IMCU unit on the fifth floor, room number one. She is mostly sleeping, but I know she will appreciate any and all visitors. We didn't speak to a doctor after they moved her from ICU, so we have no idea how long she is going to have to stay there. My guess is that she won't be leaving tomorrow.

The scan this morning showed no changes, which is a good thing. There is really nothing they can do for her other than give her pain and nausea medication and monitor her condition.

And yes, Nate, this whole ordeal doesn't build character for anyone, it just reveals it!

TRAUMA: Life in the E.R.

At about 4 pm on Tuesday I was at the high school feeding my fish when JoLyn called. She had received a message that Denise had been thrown from her horse and was being taken to Lakeview with a possible concussion. She couldn't get off work, so she asked if I would go. I drove to the hospital thinking that the best case scenario was that I would wait with her for a couple of hours then drive her home, and that the worst case scenario would be that I would have to take her to my house to keep an eye on her over night.

When I got to Lakeview I found Denise waiting to be taken for a CT scan of her head. She slept for a while, then they came to take her for the CT scan, then she slept again while we waited for the results. Sometime around 6 pm the doctor came in and announced that Denise had a small bleed on her brain (basically a bruise under the skull) and a possible fracture of her occipital bone (just above her eye). They decided that they should send her to the University Hospital where they had a more experienced neurosurgery department in case things worsened. Jo arrived just after that and for about the next 20 or 30 minutes they prepped her for the move. It got a little nerve wracking at that point as 5 paramedics came into the room to get a briefing on her and strap her down to a back board.

I followed the ambulance and arrived at the hospital just in time to walk in with her, but then I was whisked away by a social worker as someone yelled, "Incoming trauma!" Jo arrived about 10 minutes later, and about 10 minutes after that they allowed us to go back to see Denise. They had treated her as though she had not been at another hospital and they gave her a full trauma work-up.

Here Denise is resting uncomfortably in the E.R. at the U. The neurosurgeon was happy with the scan that had been done at Lakeview, so he decided that he did not want another one done right away. Then the plastic surgeon came in to consult with her about the possible fracture. The scan at Lakeview had been done on the back of her head, so the view of her occipital bone was not really clear. They arranged for another scan of her face to be done later that night.

We waited in the E.R. for about an hour before moving her to I.C.U. We had time to take some pictures while we were there. Did Denise tell the nurse that she was injured on the job? Could she even read the sign while she was strapped to a gurney with a cervical collar on?

Everything on the monitors is looking good, I guess.

This doesn't inspire confidence. I was going to snap a picture of the sign next to this which said something to the effect that any trauma resuscitation with burns needed to be videotaped for teaching purposes, but the nurse walked in just then and I kind of felt like a jerk.
Here we are going up to the I.C.U. to get Denise settled in for the night. Watch out for the blind corner!
Here is Denise all settled in for the night. They were planning to keep her here for the night and do another CT scan this morning, then reassess her condition and assign her to a regular room if all went well. The doctor said that she should plan on staying for at least two days, so Denise may spend Christmas in the hospital.

The doctors all seemed fairly confident that her codition wasn't serious, but they wanted to take every precaution. Denise may not feel very lucky right now, but I saw and heard things both in the E.R. and in the I.C.U. that made me feel like she is very lucky. Hopefully in the future she will never get on a horse again without her helmet! As long as she is in the I.C.U. she is only allowed to have family members visit, and only two at a time. Once she is moved to a regular room she can have more visitors. The hospital also doesn't want to be innundated with a bunch of calls, so call me 660-5367 or my mom 499-7050 or Jo 499-9053 for information. I will be picking up my mom and Rick at 9:30 and we will go straight to the hospital. We don't get good cell coverage there, so leave a message if you can't get through and we will call you back.

Paging Dr. Barnes!

I think it was three years ago now that Steph made me sign-up for bootcamp at Weber State with her, and I hated everything about it. While doing crunches one day I developed a sharp pain in my lower right abdomen and it hasn't ever completely gone away. When it first started I talked to both my regular doctor and my gynecologist, and neither of them could figure out what the problem might be, so I've just been living with low grade pain. Last week it was hurting more than usual, so I decided to go back in and see if we could figure out what the problem might be.

I made an appointment last Friday and my doctor took blood and urine samples to rule out some sort of infection or kidney stones. He said that it could be a pinched nerve or some sort of musculoskeletal abnormality, and he prescribed an anti-inflammatory to see if that would help.

I took the anti-inflammatory Friday night and Saturday morning. I was blow drying my hair Saturday morning when suddenly I felt like I was having a hard time breathing. By the time I finished drying my hair I was dizzy and shaking and I felt like I was going to pass out. Luckily the clinic is just a few blocks from my house, so I made it there in one piece and got an epinephrine shot and a handful of antihistamine samples. I was told to throw away my anti-inflammatory medication and take it easy for the rest of the day.

On Monday I returned to my doctor's office to get the results of my test, which were perfectly normal. My doctor decided to schedule me for an abdominal CT to see if that would show any problem.

On Tuesday I went in for my CT scan. By Tuesday night I was really sick. I had a severe headache, sharp stabbing pains in my chest that felt like the pleurisy I had last summer, and unpleasant gastrointestinal upset.

By Wednesday I was feeling even worse. I really didn't want to go in for the fifth time in six days, but I was so sick I decided that I'd better do it. My doctor looked me over and said, "Well, it looks like you've got some sort of virus". At least he already had the results of my CT scan so it wasn't a completely wasted visit. Fortunately or unfortunately, the CT scan showed all of my internal organs to be perfectly normal, so I still have no answer as to what might be causing the abdominal pain. I promised my doctor that, no matter what happened, I would not return to see him this month, and hopefully I won't have to go in for at least another six months. I spent $140 in copays in one week in order to find out that my doctor can't find anything wrong with me.

On Thursday I woke up with a rash all over my neck and face, but I am sticking to my promise. I still have the rash and some discomfort in my chest, but my other symptoms have gone away. I can't tell you how glad I am to have two weeks off to just recuperate!

Winter Has Arrived

Although technically the first day of winter is still one day away, winter arrived in Utah with a bang this weekend.

Yesterday I recieved four inches of snow in my yard, I received an additional 7 inches over night for a total of 11 inches, and it is still snowing lightly. Since both of my next-door neighbors are elderly, and since no one had come to shovel their yards by the time I finished mine, I spent an hour and a half shoveling driveways and sidewalks this morning. I am ready for a break in the snow and a hot beverage.