July 2022

July 31, 2022

July 2022

Our month of medical bills. Hooray!

We started off with a trip to Pinetop for Independence Day weekend. We needed to see Meredith and Tyler's newest baby girl, Mariah, and also needed to pick up Jake's truck that had been in the shop in Show Low since the beginning of the summer. The girls always take such funny selfies and also got an action shot of me driving. Jake hasn't been able to drive long distances for the past year because he has some intense back pain from an injury (Spoiler-because of this month alone and meeting our deductible so fast, Jake hopefully will get surgery soonish!)

We stopped by Meredith's and rudely woke everyone up from naps. That is some bad juju and I hope it doesn't come by when we have our new baby! Ha! Emily was obsessed with Mariah until she tooted and pooped. Em did not like that smell one bit. Emily is also the one who has said since the beginning of my pregnancy that SHE would like to be in charge of changing all the diapers. She has since changed her mind. Gwen loved holding the baby, too. It's always a fight to hold babies in our family. I was the one who wanted to steal Mariah so I had to apologize for not sharing very well.

While in the mountains, we realized that I had forgotten my anti nausea meds. I have been so sick this pregnancy (nothing new, but I forgot how awful it can be) and without the meds I struggle to do anything. Luckily, I had just hit 20 weeks so we thought I might be in the clear. We. Were. Wrong. Several times during our drives we would pull over, Jake would unbuckle my seatbelt while I opened the door, and I would barf. I've never loved that man more. The first time he unbuckled me without prompting it was like falling in love all over again. Ha! He's so thoughtful and doesn't wait to be helpful in any situation. I got sickest the last day we were there and was so nervous about driving back home alone--alone meaning without Jake because he would be driving the truck home. It's a true miracle I made it. The girls had puke bags ready for me, and would pep talk me as often as I needed. I love them. Gwen and Emily are intuitive and empathetic. I have already apologized to them for how crappy they may feel in their own future pregnancies. They laugh but I'm already preparing myself for that day because its is hard!

We all loved the incredible weather. It was rainy, cool, and gorgeous. Fred loved it, too. We love bringing him back to the mountains. It refreshes him and makes him a puppy again! He runs and runs and runs like back when we lived in Flagstaff and would take him on urban trails. He's the best boy.

Medical bill #1. Jake and I took Emily on a date while Gwen was at a birthday party. We went to Mod Pizza because I wanted a mushroom Margherita pizza with my entire soul. We don't typically eat there, so we all had a little bloat in our tummies. Later that night I was having such pain in my stomach. I thought it was gas so I kept trying to toot (TMI, no such thing!) with no luck. I ended up crying to Jake about it, and he and Emily were both fine at this point. We went to bed and all night Jake heard me "whimpering" in pain. At 8 am I got out of bed and nearly fainted from the pain and realized I needed to go in to the ER. I knew baby boy was fine because he was moving a lot and the pain was higher than where he was. Fast forward a trip to St. Joe's, an ultrasound showed that I was having a gallbladder attack. Our sweetest friends, Shauni and Jordan, babysat the girls so Jake could be with me for the second half of the day. They didn't end up taking the gallbladder, and I've since modified my diet and cheese scares the heck out of me in so many ways. I never thought I'd willingly give it up, but I have no problem doing that now.

Emily celebrated her 6th birthday by losing her first tooth! It had been wiggly for a while, but she was building a lego set and needed to remove a wrongly placed lego and used her. . . ding ding ding! Her wiggly tooth! That practically uprooted the whole thing, but she still needed to wiggle it a little more and when she did, her screams rang out through the house. She thought she should have pain and didn't, but didn't expect blood. It was a confusing moment. The hardest part for her is that she wiggled it out and then lost it. We still haven't found it, but the tooth fairy still gave her a brand new dollar.

We had a birthday party for Emily that same weekend as the missing tooth, and it was a great success. It was a painting and pool party and it was so much fun. We loved having her friends over, and the best part was having Myles (our neighbor who moved away) come back.

Jake had several training days with his new job so we stayed out of the house with lake days, the crayon experience, Chuck E. Cheese, and more. We went on so many dates, just the three of us women!

We went and saw The Lion King at Gammage! It was so good! We loved it! The girls got tired after the intermission, but persevered and made it to the end of the show. It was seriously so good! We were blown away with the opening number as the cast entered from the crowd. There were two percussionists and they were incredible to watch as they maneuvered their sets of instruments. I love experiences like that with them. Gwen and Emily are our favorite people and we love spending time with them.

Medical bill #2. On Friday, we were set to take the girls to their last day of a week long space-themed STEM camp. Normally they would go from 8:30-3:30 with no issue, but we got a call from the coordinator letting us know that Gwen was complaining of a tummy ache so we needed to come pick her up. We did, and Gwen did in fact have a tummy ache. She said it felt like butterflies, but also said that she had been having regular bowel movements. Throughout the rest of the day she would go in waves of feeling normal and feeling really crummy. On Saturday morning her pain came to a big head. She was trying to move her body to get relief--sometimes she crunch up in a little ball, and other times she would stretch out nice and long. Each only provided temporary relief. We had her do some little "tests" that were given to Jake when he had an appendicitis issue years ago. She stood up on her toes and slammed down to her heels and that made her cringe in pain. We pressed her belly and in the lower areas she had pain. We knew if we went to urgent care they would send us to an ER for images, so we just took her there first. She ended up getting transferred to Phoenix Children's. We found out she has a stone in the appendix, but that there is something viral going around that they've seen a lot a PCH. The bug is causing severe swelling of the intestines and mimicking appendicitis. They released her the same day and she was a trooper. It was a hard day for Gwen. Because of the providers thinking surgery could be coming up they didn't allow her to eat or drink all day. She was so hungry and tired by the time we got her home that she had a really hard time resting. Poor woman. She was amazing. She got IV meds and that was the worst part of her experience. She said getting the IV out was totally easy, but she never wanted another one put in. We had great friends offer to take Emily at a moment's notice, and though we didn't need to use that we were thankful to have options.

Today Gwen is back to normal. She is eating and happy, rested and sweet. She was concerned about Emily the entire time and this morning has not let Emily stop cuddling her. She sent Emily about 20 Marco Polo messages about the experience and I'm thankful that Jake and I will have those videos forever!