power of one

to inspire, encourage, motivate individualS to positively affect the lives of others, not themselves! the power of one. Saylor

Nate and i have always known that Saylor was never fully ours. I wonder if i feel a sliver of what perhaps the mother of our Savior felt, a cherished gift to mother such a cherished gift to all mankind. Saylor's spirit emanates beyond anything i can visually see, her power is magnificent. Her mission on earth is far more then i have been called to do and she fulfills it with every breath drawn, its her very presence. the power to inspire others to come unto Christ. When her life is set to be an example through what she experiences then we see more clearly how true this is, in the people around us who are inspired to kneel when they dont normally kneel, to fast when sacrifice has been vacant from their lives, to attend the temple after a long absence, to have faith, to give when giving is really hard.


one of the many experiences of Saylor's power over the last few weeks has been that of blood. there are no coincidences in everything is intricately placed i have no doubt of that. only a few weeks before surgery it was announced that our neighborhood was asked to participate in a blood drive on the exact day that saylor was to have surgery and even more intricate the blood from this particular drive was to be donated to pediatric hospitals only. i knew by the spirit that this was how those around us could give to us, in honor of saylor. i encouraged and the spark became great flames of multitudes giving blood. saving lives.

the last few days have been trying as saylor reverts back to a painful uncomfortable complicated body and health. but i know we still progress towards healing. i am grateful for a few good days and know that more will soon come.

BYU's future

in honor of todays season opener ...

williams violin

lots of you have asked me how i am holding up, i think i am fine, or i thought i was fine until yesterday, william helped me see how not fine i am. mind you sharing this story with the world means i am willing and able to laugh at myself so give me some props for that at least.

Storie just started school orchestra this week and she has chosen the violin to play. this means we need to purchase a violin. holy pricey these little pieces of wood and strings are! so its been on my to do list since we arrived home (well ok before that even). i have been stalking ksl in hopes of finding a good used in her size and in good condition with a not so hefty price tag. i have found a few but who knew that used violins where such a hot item, you have to pounce or you are on the loosing end. its kind of like shopping on ebay commercials all the sudden, shop victoriously! so i found one yesterday on ksl ... a bit more than i had wanted to spend but far less than a new one so i thought hey i will call nate and see what he thinks. but then i dialed and forgot what i was doing because too much was going through my brain and there was the computer in front of me with williams name and number on it so even though i had dialed nate i asked for william. nate tells me this is him... cause he is thinking why has my wife called me asking for william. and so i respond with so i am calling about the violin you have for sale? and he says yeah? and i say is there a time we can come by and look at it? and he says yeah, right now. and i chuckled a little and said well we cant right now. and he said are you serious? so then i am thinking why is this william guy being so weird so i say yeah i am serious ... then the realization hit! i was talking to NATE! oh i couldnt believe it, i was so far gone i had not even realized what i had done or who i was talking to! no recognition. i started to laugh and cry for both reasons and realized wowsers i am far gone!

how is saylor? well the last few days have been a little rougher then the beginning of the week. she was sleeping so well, now not so much! and yesterday her stomach was pretty upset all day and she was juggling some new pain. pretty ornery and pail ... so far diddo goes for today! one day at a time!

borrowed pets

this is lily, one of storie's many borrowed pets. the girls have been riding for a little over a year now so we have several horse "pets" these days. They both have really enjoyed it and excel at it as well. this last monday night was storie's horse show for the year. i was so glad to have been out of the hospital and able to be there, wasnt planning on it being a 4 hour event but never the less storie had a great time and rode beautifully! she took 2 first place prizes home and 2 second, she also won musical cones horseback style! the best part was her emergency dismount that she did in a real emergency when lily got spooked by something the parking lot, it was graceful and perfect and she kept lily under control at the same time! storie we are so proud of you!

this is meera our next borrowed pet ... jk! meera takes lessons from the same coach as the girls, not to mention she is a neighbor and one of our bestest friends too!

this is the borrowed pet we cant wait to get rid of! saylors pee bag. it comes with mile long tubing and serious inconvenience. its driving me mad! i dont know how saylor does it! its not even on me and i cant stand it! hopefully this pet finds a new home in the Gcan in a few weeks!

she is doing well today. the every morning fights and sorrow over the flushing is kind of getting me down. she hates it so bad and insists that it hurts. the bad thing is, she will have to do this the rest of her life so she must get used to it. i dont think its a pain thing, more an issue of a discomfort that she needs to grow to accept. eventually she will do it herself along with her cathing, for now its me who inflicts this torture on her every morning and its wearing on me. she had a light bulb realization at the table last night she proclaimed that she knows what the word "pain" means .... "hurt" she says. glad she figured that out just now after a million docs have asked her how much pain she is in a million times! a few minutes later she was being a little testy and i asked her what "love" means? she is still working on it.

present

"yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift ... that is why its called the present."

today was pure joy. i haven't felt so blissfully peacefully calm and just plain happy for such a long time. i am not an early riser but i woke up early today and wasn't at all agitated, when saylor called for me nate fetched her and brought her to snuggle with me in bed, when he slid her into my arms it was indescribable how beautiful it felt, it was more than the usual, it was more than i can describe with words. i quickly took notice of my feelings and just relished in them with her for about an hour. the kids also were up and at em and it felt so good to not be rushed to school, have laundry started and the house clean and 5 thank you notes all done before they even left.

some yoga practice followed, i can feel the steps backwards my body has taken in the last few months so it felt good to do something for myself. then a quick shower and onto a promised movie for saylor. she is bored out of her mind really so i had to come up with calm activities to go do. i bet it cant be guessed what we saw ... jk of course kung fu panda. the above quote is what i got out of the movie for the day. saylor loved it and i loved the time with her. she has really turned a corner in the last 2 days and seems to be quickly returning to her self. it feels almost unreal how normal things were today, how happy and peaceful she was, it seemed as though the surgery and all its complications where years ago. she was so exhausted from just getting out to the movie and feel asleep in the car so i gently carried her in and we took a 2 hour nap on my bed together, no interruptions. can you believe that? it was so blissful. the kids came home from school and got to their jobs and homework with no complaining while i cleaned the garage and the car. two things i rarely have time to get to.

we cooked dinner as a family and we are just now settling into the evening rituals. it was such a beautiful perfect day ... it was a gift, a gift i recognized and experienced to its fullest. a present, the present.

i want to be a ... florist ... when i grow up!

this is who saylor wants to be when she grows up. its that first moment, that first career you identify ... some kids its a police or fireman, a doctor, a garbage man, whatever ... my daughter wants to be a florist. i should be extatic right? well i am but i am also a little bummed that it has very little do with me, i am not her inspiration.

we have the bee movie but it also got played over and over on the movie channel at PCMC and so i think we have watched it at least 20 times no exageration. Vanessa is her inspirtation. so for now she wants to be a florist. how convenient!

today has been a rough morning at it looks as though we are headed back to this dreadful place ...

i think we will hold out until tomorrow just simply because we have things under control and as if that place is not difficult to handle on any given day its worse on the weekends. so i went to flush saylor this morning, it wouldnt pull back. tried all the tricks the docs taught me and ... nothing. so i knew i had to get the locked cap off once again before she got in pain or worse risk rupturing so i tried and tried and couldnt. she wasnt in pain yet so i was good on time but i decided to go ahead and call nate at church. he came home and got the locked cap off so we were able to drain all the urine and pressure out. total we spent an hour and 22 minutes trying to fix the troubled side and still to no avail. anyhow we sort of just gave up with exhaustion. we know how to keep her drained and safe but its not a long term fix. what is up with the superpubic side that refuses to work? anyhow if we cant get it flushing by tomorrow morning it looks as though saylor and i are headed back.

home ... no wait ... ok now

I am scared to even say the words WE ARE HOME for fear that we will be jinxed. we came home late thur night only to return friday afternoon as a result of some potentially serious complications. we are back home and plummeting to the ground with exhaustion as the adrenaline of the day wears off.

last night was beautiful. it felt so good to be home. saylor went to sleep at around 11pm (way early for her) and she slept through the night except when nate woke her to take pain meds, even then she went right back to sleep. nate sleeps like a rock and its actually pretty rare for him to help with the kiddos in the night but he did last night all night, what a hero. i got a good nights sleep and it was a good thing! this morning was a little unnerving with the hustle to get the other two to school, something i am not used to yet, and everything in order and be saylors full time nurse. at about 1:30 saylor started crying that she was pain, it escalated a little so i undid her diaper to resolve the matter. no poop but some gauze had been swallowed up into an incision a tad bit. so i tried to pull it out but she was in too much pain and i couldnt hold her down and pull it out so i called for reinforcements and my mom came up. we got it out and got her somewhat calm. we got into my bed and i tried soothing her to sleep. she was only calm for about 15 min and kept kicking her legs like she had restless leg syndrome or something. i could see she was still in pain. then more crying that over an hour escalated into severe shaking and screaming. i called her surgeon at PCMC who instructed me to head back. so i scrambled to get someone to take the kids and some stuff together and her in the car. all the while on the phone with nate while i panicked a little. Her draining tube was not draining so it didnt take long for nate to realize the pain was build up of too much urine in her tattered bladder and that we had to get it out before it ruptured (potentially the worst thing ever, could leave us worse of then before) so the plan was to pull over to the side of the road and try and unlock her locked catheter. i couldnt get it. so i kept driving to nate who was about half way to PCMC at work. he jumped in the car very literally on the side of the freeway where he got dropped off and proceeded to try and get the locked cap off and thank goodness he did, i had a strong feeling our time was short and i was starting to shake really bad myself. we decided to keep going to PCMC with a broken drain and a not supposed to be open drain. saylor calmed right down, her pain was relieved and she was happy again. we got there and waited for about 2 hours for her surgeon to get out of surgery. he would have come sooner but got word from another doc who saw us right when we came in that saylor was more stable now as a result of something crazy her parents did in the car on the way. when he came in he pronounced nate brilliant! i agree ... he saved her! then he fixed her SP tube so it would drain, it had a huge clot blocking it! we came up with a care plane to hopefully prevent this from happening again. we also came to the realization when she was hurting just a little in the beginning that this was a good sign, a sign that she could feel when she was full, that she has feeling down there is such a great thing. we have never known how much feeling she had and most SB kids dont have much. so this was about the only good thing that came of this scenario and its probably something we would have learned down the road anyhow, oh well i guess just some silver lining.

in the end i know the fierce prayers i was offering through tears and driving where answered and a potentially very serious situation was evaded with the help of our Heavenly Father. how grateful i am for Nate ... he really is my HERO! our HERO!