Blessings, blessings

**EDIT** The reason I entitled this post "Blessings, blessings," was because after coming home from the observatory last night I was just so grateful for all of the blessings God has given me one after the other this summer. Even my illness has been a blessing in a way, for it has really slowed my life down, allowing me to relax and chill and enjoy the people around me and God and His Word in ways and capacities that I have not been able to for years. And on top of all that, He's given me an awesome boyfriend who I just become closer and closer to and more and more grateful for each day, He's given me an awesome and a non-stressful and FUN research opportunity with a stipend, where I get to play around with a huge telescope. Those are just a few of the blessings God has given me this summer, I could go on and on about how He has been blessing me, but those were some of the ones that were impressing me the most when I came home last night. Now, for those of you who haven't read it yet, enjoy the rest of the post. :)



This is my beautiful observatory. Not my observatory, but I feel like it's mine because this observatory has only recently been opened this summer, I am one of a few people on campus who owns a key to it, one of a few people on campus who knows how to twist the dome and open the hatch, and one of the few people who have actually had the chance to play around with the telescope and view beautiful celestial objects through it.



The observatory construction was finished later this summer than expected, and the telescope was mounted in the observatory only a week or two ago, and so last night was actually my first night getting a hands-on experience with the observatory and telescope. Can you tell I was excited?







My professor was kind enough to take pictures of me. This is me looking through the scope. The small eyepiece on top of the huge cylindrical part of the telescope is simply an aid to help you aim the telescope at the object you are looking at, and the eyepiece I'm looking through in the picture is the one that magnifies the object you're viewing.

While my professor and I were waiting for it to get dark enough to start taking images of celestial objects, a sudden horrible attack came on...I waited as long as I could as he babbled on about all the possibilities of the things we could do that night, and while everything he was saying sounded FABULOUSLY exciting, I knew I needed to get away to take pain medication. I finally excused myself and took the three minute walk to the nearest building with water for my meds, hunching over lower and lower as I walked because of the pain. I was SO scared that I was just going to have to say goodnight to the professor and miss out on the awesome opportunity for viewing, but I prayed and prayed that the pain medication worked. And, thank the Lord, it did. After about twenty-minutes of near torture where my professor didn't seem to notice me wincing in pain while he was showing me around the equipment, I finally felt relief and felt SO SO thankful that I could continue to work with the fabulous equipment and view aspects of God's glory through the scope.

The coolest thing I saw last night was a star that we aimed the telescope at. With the naked eye it looked like a simple, shining star. But through the telescope you saw that it was instead a two-star system, or a binary star system, two stars revolving around each other. It was beautiful, awe-inspiring.



Here you can see that we've attached a CCD camera to the telescope eyepiece so that we could take images of the objects we were viewing. Unfortunately, by the time we had the telescope pointed in the right direction, the dome of the observatory stopped working, and we could no longer turn it so that the open hatch could give us a clear view of our object, which last night was going to be a beautiful globular cluster, I believe. When the dome stopped working we realized it was simply time to shut down for the night, and hopefully contact our construction people in the morning to get it working again. :( I can't WAIT for my next opportunity to view stars, planets and galaxies through the scope.

Medieval Times

Last Monday I took Brent to Medieval Times in celebration of his 25th birthday! In the time that I've known him, I've heard him talk about wanting "to go do that someday" plenty of times that by spring break of this year I had determined to take him for his birthday. In the midst of my planning I decided to make it a surprise...a surprise worthy of a blindfold.


I adorned his blindfold at the CSUN parking lot, the starting location of our exciting and mysterious travels. I zipped around many turns as I maneuvered my way through the CSUN campus to end up heading north on Reseda, and by that time Brent admitted that he was totally disoriented and had no idea in what direction we were headed. I was headed to the 118, of course, and as we drove off of the on-ramp and gained speed Brent proudly declared that we were on the freeway. He eventually declared that we were either on the 101 north, the 118, the 5 south, or the 210. Fabulous guesses Brent.

I took the 118 to the 5, and at one point on the 5 there is a signature bottle-neck. Brent was wise and guessed that we must be on the 5 at that particular traffic jam spot. I didn't like that he knew we were on the 5, so my attempt to get him to think we may, just may, be on the 101, was to start making exclamations like, "Oh, such a wicked accident," or "Poor people!" or "I'm a little nervous about this detour because of the accident...I hope I know how to get back on our way..." My attempts didn't really seem to work, he believed me that there was an accident and I was on a detour, but he still believed we were headed in the 5 south direction. Fortunately, he was convinced that I was taking him to Disneyland for what I have mentioned before as what would be the perfect date: early dinner at Blue Bayou, perfect seating/viewing of the fireworks, and Haagen-Dazs ice cream on the way to a movie at Downtown Disney. I'm so thankful he was wrong.

The view of the Medieval Times castle as we were about to turn in to the parking lot was just too amazing to pass up, so the revealing of the surprise was at that moment. Here he is before he knows where he is:


And voila! Surprise!!


Here we are excited to be together at such an exciting destination.


Ok, Medieval Times is ENORMOUS fun. Let me just say that. But before I show you any more pictures or describe any more of our time there, let me give you a disclaimer. If you go to Medieval Times, expecting it to be pretty cheesy and ready to play around and have fun with the cheesiness, then you have a ton of a blast and come away really impressed with the Dinner & Tournament. That said, here is how the rest of our night went. :)

After we registered, we were given yellow and red striped crowns. We had been assigned to the red and yellow team, for there were about five different teams at the tournament. The red&yellow team, the green team, the blue team, the black team, and the red team.


Intimidation before we were allowed to enter the castle:

My guess is that this sign was announcing the court of flags, though I'm not sure I remember seeing a court of flags...
We arrived at the castle about an hour before the show was to start, so we had time to mosey around the souvenir shops (which turned out to be pretty darn awesome) and do things like give Brent a birthday card:

It says, among a few other things, "Happy Birthday, my quarter-of-a-cent-ury old Brent." :)

I was pretty impressed with the themed bathrooms, but sadly, the picture does NOT do it justice. Here it stinkin' is anyway. :)

They had a totally cool sword shop, with swords that were selling for $300-$500!!! And the shopkeepers were totally nice in allowing us to hold them and pose with them! The one I chose was REALLY heavy and had a ruby gem in its handle thingy. All the swords were named cool things like "Lionheart" or "Robin Hood." Sadly, I forget what mine was called.


The battle-axe was SO AWESOME. Really top heavy too...the handle was made of wood and the axe part was made of really heavy metal, so the weight distribution was so weird. Somehow it made it feel authentic in my hands, though.


Since we didn't think it would be necessarily a good idea to buy a $400 souvenir, Brent bought me a totally cool letter opener from the sword shop. It's so cute and intimidating at the same time, it looks like a miniature version of a Scarlet Pimpernel sword. And it comes in totally handy for me, one who is prone to demolishing envelopes as I try to get at their contents...now I can open an envelope with one quick noble sweep!

Brent had fun taking pictures of me in pretty medieval princess hats:


When the show was set to start, the king allowed us to enter the jousting area to be seated one team at a time. At our seats we found this table setting.

On the menu was tomato bisque, yummy crusty garlic bread, chicken breast and thighs (with bones), ribs, a roasted potato, choice of drink, and a pastry of the castle.

The show was entertaining the entire time. And not only entertaining, but involving. Each team had one knight assigned to it, so of course our red&yellow team sat in one section and cheered for our knight in every competition and fight and booed anytime another team's knight did well or beat our knight up. Brent and I really had fun getting into character and getting passionate about our knight winning.


Chowing down on the medieval meal. Remember, no forks, no spoons, no utensils whatsoever.




At one point one single horse was the sole entertainment. He did SUCH a good job doing his tricks. He entered the arena walking on his hind legs, front lets and neck held high and proud up in the air. He walked that way for about 30 seconds or more...I had NO idea horses were capable of such things. He spent a while prancing and dancing around to the beat of medieval music, and demonstrated his ability to bow to the king. WOW. I was laughing and loving the horse the entire time he was out there.

The royalty:
After most of the games between the knights, the knights who did well were given flowers from the princess. Each knight took their flowers to their respective teams and threw them to the ladies in their audience. I stood up and waved my arms to him and he threw me the beautiful carnation. Brent sighed and said now he needed to go beat the knight up. :)


Our knight:
A kind man took our picture after the festival was over. To me it's the perfect pic, it captures the giddy spirit we were in after such a fun birthday date.


And Brent got a souvenir from me too. I bought him a cool, heavy mug, perfect for hot cocoa on a cozy night.

I totally recommend Medieval Times!!!

LOL

You also know your sister is a mom when you overhear her singing in a sassy rock star voice, "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream!!"

Thank you for your prayers!!!!!

Many of you know that I was again hospitalized from June 25-28. I was admitted because my surgeon recognized that it was not an option for me to remain at home with pain medication that did not work while I waited week after week for outpatient procedures that could possibly give me a diagnosis. It was determined that I would be admitted to the hospital where I could take the strong stuff that REALLY took the edge off of my pain, and all of the procedures and tests would be rushed. The first night I got there, sure enough, had an attack, but thankfully the drugs they injected through my IV helped right away. The next day I had an MRI so that the doctors could get a better look at my biliary ducts and pancreas, and again thankfully everything from the MRI looked normal. I spent the rest of that day and the next morning drinking a salty gross drink that cleaned me out for my colonoscopy the afternoon of the 27th. My GI informed me that while I was sedated for the colonoscopy he was also going to do another endoscopy to take a biopsy to rule out celiac disease. I'll get the celiac biopsy results next week, but the doctors are doubtful that celiac is the cause of my problems...the biopsy was just sort of a shot in the dark.

So, I went to the hospital having discussed things with my surgeon who had told me that after all the tests, if all my organs continued to look normal, they were going to go ahead with the removal of the gallbladder, because she admitted that I could be one of those one in a million cases where the gallbladder is the source of the problem and yet the problem cannot be diagnosed definitively.

However, on the afternoon of the 26th, my GI came to my hospital room and interviewed me about my life. He asked about what I study (astrophysics), how many units I usually take a semester (12-15), if my classes are difficult (YES!!), and he asked if at the time I first started noticing the pain last fall, if there was one particular thing in my life that was a source of stress. I said YES, there was one particular physics class where the professor demanded everything from me when I couldn't give it to him, and yet I still tried as hard as I could to give him everything I possibly could. That one class, Electricity & Magnetism, was a constant stress last fall semester. And I told the doctor that even before that class and since that class I've lived at pretty much a really high level of stress.

So after my colonoscopy my GI said that I continued to look completely normal and healthy. He discussed things with my surgeon, and they both think that my diagnosis could be one of two things. Their first guess is that because I live at such a high level of stress, I've become hyper-sensitive to the normal contractions of my gallbladder. When I heard that, I told my GI, "So much for my high pain tolerance." :) Both the GI and the surgeon are quick to say, though, that I mustn't think that the pain is in my head...it's REAL, DEBILITATING pain, they've seen it in patients before, but I wouldn't be feeling it if I wasn't so stressed or something. So they put me on muscle relaxers which I started about a week and a half ago, and I think the doctors' first guess of a diagnosis might be right because I've really felt my pain subside and become much less frequent. HURRAY. :) SUCH an answer to prayer.

Much of the day I still feel pretty...crummy...that's all I really know how to describe it, but at least it's not pain. And my appetite has not yet gotten back to normal, I've lost 13 lbs in the last five months, but it's encouraging to know now that I can safely eat food and more and more it's not going to cause pain any more!!

I still have follow-up appointments with my GI and surgeon, but I think they're going to be satisfied with the improvement I've already seen.

Their other guess of a diagnosis is that I have a problem with my something-called-a-sphincter-of-odi, but that is really difficult to diagnose and the procedure to diagnose it comes with a lot of risks that they don't want to subject me to. So let's hope and pray that the muscle relaxers and a little life-style change for less stress solves my problems!!

Thank you so much again for your prayers!

I have exciting things to post about, like a camping trip and an evening at Medieval Times...so stay tuned for stories and pictures!

You know your sister is a mom...

...when you hear her singing dreamily in the shower, "Deep in the hundred-acre wood, where Christopher Robin play..."

Lots of extended family is in town right now, staying at my parents place so that they could celebrate Harrison and Vika's marriage. I moved in with my sister to free up a bed at my place, and consequently I get serenaded by Georgie's favorite Winnie-the-Pooh tunes. I love being roomies with my sister. :)

What three days can reveal

So I entered the weekend knowing that my eosinophil count was too high, and if with the bloodwork I had done last Wednesday the count was still too high, then I would be sent to an infectious disease center. I was content that a high eosinophil count would indicate a parasite, and that a parasite would explain my inflamed lymph nodes. I understood that if I got a bad attack again, I would call my doctor and he would tell me whether or not I needed to go back to the ER.

Saturday morning, sure enough, I got a terrible attack. I took my pain medication when it started forming, and decided to wait the amount of time it should take the pain medication to work before I called the doctor. After a half hour of ever increasing pain, I took a shower and prepared for the possibility of returning to the ER. However, when I called the doctor and described to him my pain and nausea, he was honest with me and told me that it would be totally legitimate for me to come to the ER for pain meds, but because they've already run all the available tests on me (colonoscopies are not done over the weekend), my trip to the ER would be purely for help with my pain. Instead we decided that he would prescribe me better pain medication and anti-nausea medication that I could pick up the following Monday...short term fix before the doctors actually figure out what my problem and its solution is.

Sunday morning I got a bad attack also, but I took plenty of my pain medication AND anti-nausea medication, and finally I had found a medication combination that worked. I was a zombie on my bed for an hour or two, but it felt wonderful. No pain, no nausea. Brilliant.

Monday I saw the GI for the colonoscopy consult. Unfortunately, he listened to my story and couldn't figure out why my surgeon had referred me to him for such a procedure. He said that nothing he would possibly find with a colonoscopy would explain my pain. I tried to explain to him that my surgeon had pointed out that with all the tests I've already had done, my colon is the last organ that has not been checked. He agreed to take that afternoon and Tuesday morning to do an overview of my hospital records and try to determine some other possible solution before flying to a colonoscopy. In the meantime, I told him that my sister has celiac disease and some of my symptoms are making me wonder if I might have it too. He said, again, he doesn't know how that would explain my pain, but it would be worth a shot to have the celiac bloodwork done. I had my blood tested for celiac disease yesterday, and will get the results sometime next week.

I also made a stop at my surgeon's office yesterday. He told me that my most recent bloodwork showed that my eosinophil count is actually normal...it's on the high side of normal, but it's normal. He told me for about the third time that I'm "not a simple case." He called my GI and tried to convince him I needed a colonoscopy, but they left it agreeing that the GI would look over my records and try to come to some other conclusion before resorting to such a procedure. My surgeon told me that he's not concerned about my eosinophil count, but just to cover all bases he will refer me to an infectious disease doctor if my celiac bloodwork comes back negative.

Last night after dinner, a heavy meal of pizza and breadsticks, Brent and I went on a quick trip to the mall. On our way to the mall my belly started bothering me, I felt that something monumentous was about to happen. Sure enough, right smack in the middle of our "night out on the town" my abdomen gave me loads of trouble, pain, nausea, you name it. They took me right home and I went to right to bed, feeling very discouraged and ready for a solution to my many and mysterious problems. Thankfully, Heather had written me a VERY encouraging note in response to hearing how inconclusive the day's doctor appointments had been, and part of the note prompted a desire in me to study Deuteronomy 32, a passage rich in the sovereignty of God. So the day ended on a better note as I rested in God's control and knowledge of my body.

I woke up at about 2:30 am last night, tossing and turning because of one of my middle-of-the-night attacks. I couldn't get back to sleep for almost three hours...I shouldn't have put off taking my pain medication so long, but I have been accustomed to it not working and I didn't feel like making the trek downstairs for a glass of water and a pill that wouldn't work. Now that I'm fully awake I realize it would have made a lot more sense to just try the medication at first anyways, but in my groggy, woken up from my deep sleep state I decided it would be better to thrash around on my bed. FINALLY I decided I could do nothing but crawl out of bed for medication, and thankfully this time it WORKED. This medication is pretty hit or miss, I had another attack only this morning for which it didn't do anything. Weird.

By the way, my surgeon went back on his promise for stronger pain meds. When I told him what medication I was already on, he was hesitant to give me anything stronger, because anything stronger is highly addictive and is medication that he only gives to patients in the hospital because of its zombie-like producing effects. So bummer. Until we figure out what's wrong with me I must deal with medication that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

So, everything is still pretty much up in the air. I saw a physical therapist today who is intrigued by my shoulder story and really believes it's something that can be remedied. She said something about a nerve and a C6 vertebrae, and when she pressed said C6 vertebrae, tingles were sent all the way down the right side of my body. When I told her about that, she sastisfactorily stated that would make sense. She can't wait to see me again and investigate into my shoulder business, until then she gave me some simple stretches to do twice a day.

Day Trip Up the Coast

On Friday Heather and I took a day trip up the coast to Santa Barbara. We didn't go because we had a breakthrough of feeling well enough to live life again. On the contrary, we were both feeling pretty crummy. Heather has been trying to pass kidney stones for the last several weeks, and my attacks had been coming more frequently and by Friday I was entering day three of almost constant nausea. But we figured that we had been stuck in our house pretty much all week, and if we're gonna feel crummy, we may as well feel crummy during a chill day in Santa Barbara. We're so glad we went.

We kept getting the giggles during the drive out because we would be chit-chatting away, laughing about Georgie or talking to Georgie when all of the sudden one of us would groan in pain or moan with nausea. We decided we wouldn't have wanted to spend a day like that with anyone else, because neither of us had to worry about ruining the joy of the day for the other person. Both of us knew we were both in pain and feeling icky, both of us had the same amount of sympathy and compassion for the other, and both of us knew how to keep our humor about us as we battled through our discomforts.

We got side-tracked by the Camarillo Outlets on our way to Santa Barbara. There was an item or two Heather was on the look out for and I thought of a few things I wanted to find at discount prices, so we took a walk around the loop of stores. We parked right in front of Bebe where I spotted one of those dream outfits...the kind where you look at it and realize that is how you were born to dress. Which one of these outfits do you think caught my eye?


Were you right?

I just had to try it on. LOVED it on even more than on the mannnequin. Unfortunately, even at the discount outlet price the whole outfit would have been probably around 200 bucks. Anyways, I really like this style.


We made it to a few kids clothes stores, a cosmetics store, a few womens' clothing stores, and approached the end of our time at the outlets by a stop at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Heather asked if I was going to be up for a caramel apple after our lunch, and I surprised myself and Heather by saying yes! Because of my nausea the previous two days and that morning, not much had gotten past my lips, and the stuff that did get forced down my throat I had no appetite for. But I was so thankful that while I was walking around the outlets, my nausea disappeared! It was replaced by the start of one of my painful attacks, but at that point pain in my back was welcomed if it came with a break from the nausea. We bought our caramel apple and saved it for after our picnic lunch.

Our last stop before packing back into the car was at a toy store where Heather and I set out on a look out for a small toy to get Georgie for being such a good girl. We came across a basket of Beanie Babies and agreed that we would each select two animals that we thought she would like and then let her choose from them. I saw a gray goose with a bright orange bill and feet that I was pretty sure she would be attracted to. I also went out on a limb and selected a dragon from among the rest of the animals. Heather found a polka dotted bear and a red rooster. We set all four animals in front of Georgie and asked her which one she wanted. She slowly and meditatively glanced at each animal, starting with the rooster, moving on to the bear, then to the goose, and ended with the dragon. She then extended her pointer finger and with the rest of her fingers curled up to her palm, decisively pointed to the goose. Heather and I laughed so hard to see the intense thought that she had put into her decision and the effort with which she had pointed. We promptly bought her animal of choice: Honks, the goose.

When I got into the car I realized that my attack was growing with remarkable acceleration. By the time we were back on the freeway I was constantly moaning and groaning, the pain was beginning to draw tears, and I could no longer answer any of Heather's questions...talking was just too much. I had already taken my pain medication and wasn't going to be able to take it again for another four hours, so Heather made the decision to make an emergency stop at Walmart for some advil, a drug I can safely take with my other pain medication. About 20 minutes after I took the advil, either it really did kick in or my attack naturally ended and I felt normal. No nausea, no pain. And I was hungry. :) Oh, hunger with a non-nauseas appetite is such a blessing.

We had a picnic at the beach in Santa Barbara, on a huge grassy lawn before the sand.


We all joyously devoured our delicious lunch prepared by Heather. Marinated stir-fried chicken and broccoli in quinoa with watermelon and blueberries on the side. I was so thankful to have an appetite for a meal. It was the first meal I had actually enjoyed in literally days.




Beauty shots:








Dramatically savoring my apple:


After lunch Georgie and I played a game of tag:




Heather and I took turns taking model shots with Georgie:








We all joined forces for a footsie photo:


Georgie and I reverted again to a game of "I'm-a-gonna-getchu!"







Heather and Georgie played around together:




Hugs and kisses (WAY better than Hershey's...):





Heather and Georgie drank out of cute little sippy cups:
Beautiful babes:


Georgie decided she NEEDED to carry the 10 lb. lunch box. It was so necessary. It was a little too heavy for her though, so Auntie Hayley had to hold it above the ground while she walked with the strap around her shoulder.








Georgie and Auntie Hayley teamed up to "get" Heather:


Then we packed up our belongings in the car and went to dip our toes in the sea:








Heather said this photo is for Brent. Here you go, my Brent.

We drove home after dipping our feet into the water. Wonderful relaxing day. I was SO thankful that God gave me a window of feeling normal so that I could maximally enjoy our food and our playtime at the beach. Sure enough, after dinner when I got home my nausea returned. It really was just a little window that God provided me. :)

That day I got a phone call from my surgeon's office. It was one of his nurses, who wanted to know how how I was feeling. When I had seen the surgeon on Wednesday he was very surprised that the kind and amount of pain medication he had prescribed to me wasn't helping with the attacks, and was further surprised the next day when I called to tell him that my new prescription didn't work either. So on Friday the nurse had the surgeon on the other line while she talked to me, and after I described to her my nausea and my intense tear-drawing attacks, she put me on hold while she spoke to the surgeon. They told me that if I got one of those attacks during the weekend, I needed to call the office phone, and the operator would direct me to the on-call doctor who would tell me decisively whether or not I should return to the ER. After that phone call I felt very taken care of and appreciative of my surgeon and his office. I'm so thankful they're taking my pain so seriously.

My colonoscopy consult is tomorrow. I'm praying that the colonoscopy can be this week.