Steve.....

About 2 weeks ago Steve started having trouble sleeping. One night with only six hours of sleep followed with five hours the next day, four the next and finally no sleep the next night. That day he went to North Ogden to pick up his son for his Wednesday visit and then went to his parents house in Perry. When it was time to take Hunter home my father-in-law drove Steve to take Hunter home. After dropping Hunter off Steve made a drastic change from just holding it together to losing it.  It got so bad that Steve's parents and his sister took him to the local ER so he could be assessed by a Crisis worker and then transferred to UNI for inpatient psychiatric treatment. 

Since then he has been transferred to another inpatient treatment center nearby since he needed more care than UNI could give him. He has had two CT scans so far (both came back normal), and when he was first transferred to the new location he was in renal failure because he had become extremely dehydrated. He has since been rehydrated and his kidney function is back to normal. 

They started him on ECT on Friday after having a family meeting on Thursday where we discussed the treatment options with his treatment team (A Social Worker, Med Student, Medical Resident, and the Psychiatrist). It was the Psychiatrist's recommendation that ECT would be the best treatment for him since medication hadn't worked for him yet. He had his first treatment on Friday and it went well. Steve called me tonight (a couple of times) and sound MUCH better. The only thing that I kept remembering from the Family Meeting on Thursday is that the Psychiatrist told us this would happen - he would "get better" and then slide back and that his  progress would be "glacial" 

I am hurting for Steve and that his mind isn't working the way it should. I know that when he "comes out" of this his self esteem is going to be damaged. He will feel bad about this "weakness" and being hospitalized again. I will try to explain to him that it wasn't his fault and that nobody will blame him and it doesn't make him any less of a man. It will take some time, but I hope that I will be able to convince him. I hope he will know how much everyone in my family and his family love him,  how much Hunter loves him and how much I love him. 

Something that has been bugging me....

I remember someone (I can't remember who and I hope she doesn't read my blog so I don't offend her) telling me that her fiance had offered to take her on a honeymoon after they married or use the money to buy her a new wardrobe. Now a new wardrobe sounds awesome....I would love it. But the reason for the new wardrobe was that they were getting married in the Temple (a Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and she didn't have clothes that were appropriate to wear once she was married. 

In my religion (also called LDS or Mormon) once you go through the Temple you start wearing garments. These garments you will wear underneath all of your clothes (except for, of course, swim suits) for the rest of your life. The garments cover your arms so that you wouldn't be able to wear tank tops or sleeveless shirts. The garments cover to your knees (some even go to your calf or ankle) so short shorts and mini skirts (at least to short) are not able to be worn anymore. It helps me wear modest clothes. 

Anyway...back to what I was saying. It is so sad that there are girls that are planning to marry in the Temple, yet before they do they are wearing very immodest clothing so they have to buy whole new wardrobes after they start wearing garments. I would think that growing up in the church, and preparing for marrying in the Temple, they would at least have more clothes that are modest so they wouldn't need to get all new clothes when they get married. 

I did own tank tops and mini skirts before I married my husband. The only difference was, the miniskirt came to my knee, the tank tops were worn underneath another shirt or over another shirt. I wanted to make sure that when I started wearing garments I had modest clothes to wear with them. 

I know there might be some girls who are converts, or are inactive in the church until they get older and they have different standards. So when they are getting married they may have to buy all new clothes. I understand that. I'm just not understanding family's that are strong in the church who have daughters who are wearing short shorts and tank tops. 

I really hope I don't offend anyone, I just am wondering why some girls do this when they know they wont be able to wear their clothes after they get married in the temple. 

Summer Vacations......Part 1

Summer is coming to an end. Kids start school soon. Both my stepson and niece start school on August 20th (which also happens to be my niece's 7th birthday). So that means summer is ending, right?

In the past three weeks we went on 2 separate vacations. The first was with my family. Steve, Hunter and I went camping in Hobble Creek Canyon in Springville, Utah, with my family. Everyone was there (except for my dad of course who comes up for one day only each time we go camping, but he never stays for a night).

The first night it was just my mom, sister (Missee), niece (Violet), family friend (Missy), Steve, Hunter and I. My sister-in-law Mindy was helping bring stuff to the campground since my mom's car wasn't big enough to fit everything in it. She brought one load and then she and her daughter (another niece Hailey) left to get one more load and she left her son, Jaxon, at the campground to play.

My mom and Missy decided to go down to Macey's and get some groceries (not enough room in the fridge at home). Missee and I decided to go down to Walgreen's to get some items. I wanted to buy some prizes for a scavenger hunt I decided to plan to make for the kids the next day. Missee was emptying out some boxes of firewood from the car so we could take Violet with us. She passed by something twice before knowing it but when she noticed it we all noticed it.....a snake. I HATE SNAKES! I got as close as I dared to get and checked and noticed what looked like (to me) a rattle. I said that it looked like it had a rattle on it and we all stepped back a little further trying to decide what to do. A couple of seconds after I said that I thought it was a rattlesnake Violet (who was standing next to me) screamed at the top of her lungs and the snaked "flipped out". The best way to explain it is that it kind of did a somersault type action. It didn't really move again after that, but we weren't sure if it was dead or alive and none of us wanted to get to close to it to check. Violet was FREAKING OUT and screaming that it had bit her (it didn't). We drove the the Campground Manager's location and he wasn't there. We went back to the campground (snake still at the same location), Mindy and Hailey returned a short time later. They didn't know what to do either since the Campground Manager was nowhere to be found.

I went and woke up Steve and asked him for help. We asked him to kill it by throwing a rock at it. He threw a couple of rocks at it (he's not very good at aiming) and when he finally hit it we noticed that it didn't move. We decided that since we hadn't really noticed it moving since Violet screamed that she must have given it a heart attack or something.

When everyone else arrived on Thursday we would show them the dead snake and BJ (youngest brother - who moved to California recently) finally told us it was probably a rattlesnake and not one of the snakes who has a fake rattle to make other animals think they are rattlesnakes.

Here's a picture of the snake:

Steve and I have OSA (obstructive sleep apnea) and use CPAP machines. I can go for a night or two without my CPAP. I don't get the best of sleep - but I can survive. Steve on the other hand......doesn't. If he doesn't use his CPAP when we go camping his uvula (thing in the back of the throat) swells and he keeps choking on it. If he tries to talk he dry heaves (since he hasn't eaten anything he can't throw up). This year we rented a battery that he could use for his CPAP so he wouldn't have that problem this year. (It makes him VERY ONERY the whole time we are camping) The battery worked awesome the first night but it only worked for a couple of hours the second night. We figured one of two things happened. 1. He forgot to turn the battery off the first day so it stayed on all day, or 2. It wasn't fully charged when it was sent to us.

When we originally decided to go camping with my family we decided to go for 3 days (staying 2 nights) from July 23rd to July 25th as we had a family reunion for Steve's family on Saturday July 26th. We were going to get up Friday morning, pack up our tent, then our car, then hang out until the late afternoon. We would then go home and shower and relax and go to bed early for the party the next day. When we woke up on Friday morning and Steve said he hadn't slept very well and his uvula was pretty swollen and he kept dry heaving every time he tried to talk, we decided to pack up and leave right then (around 9:30ish).

We packed up quickly, went home, showers, took long naps, and relaxed for the rest of the day.