What a way to relax

The doctor told me just to relax, so today I went shooting with Annika, my sister, and her boyfriend Robert. It was quite fun! The rifle (AR -15 ) was the easiest I actually hit the milk jug quite a few times! The pistol (ruger 380 LCP to be exact) on the other hand was quite tricky, I hit the pepsi can....but I was aiming for the milk jug hmmm. I have no idea about guns, so thanks Robert for a fun outing :) What a way to spend a relaxing sunday..can you tell I am feeling better?

Fixed Hair

My wonderful friend of 15 years, Becky, fixed my hair today! It's still shaved up the back, so if you lift my hair up it's shaved, but becky did a great job fixing my hair so I look normal! Ya, it's so good to start to feel normal again!

Still Feeling Great!

So, things have been going really well this time around! I have no pain, headaches, or swelling woo woo! Minus my new haircut, or should I say half shaved head, I am feeling happy and healthy. I have a follow up on the 1st and should be able to come home very very very soon, I am so excited!

THANK YOU CORAL CANYON

I must say thank you to all my co workers who have supported me through this whole ordeal! I don't know who,(Except Robin who DONATED 5 DAYs WOW, she is so kind) but some of you even donated your personal days to allow me to be able to be in the hospital, recover, and not stress out! I wanted to give a special thanks to Jan for running all over town getting my paper work from the district and to Lorene for cleaning, setting up my classroom, and taking my class, and to Jason Bruce constantly checking on me over the entire summer! Thank you Thank you Thank You to all of you,I will never be able to express to you how much this all means to me!

Well..I am out again!

Well, after two more weeks in the hospital, 1 week in ICU, 2 more brain surgeries, and an almost completely shaved head I think this ordeal is FINALLY over! I guess I should begin with the surguries (am I spelling that right?) the first one they opened my head again, took out the cow muscle that they used to cover the area where they removed my skull and replaced it with a graph from my leg, it seemed to work at first but then it started to swell up again with spinal fluid. (this is when I went home for 5 hours and rode in the ambulance to the university for a second opinion). So they opened me up again, checked the graph to see if it was attaching well, then placed a shunt, which is like a drain, in my spine to allow the spinal fluid to drain while my brain was healing. I had to lay totally flat from thursday to tuesday (I could roll side to side but not lift my head at all). Every hour a certain amount of spinal fluid would drain from my spine, which was really gross to look at in the little bag hanging by my bed...ewww. The bright side of this was they gave me a pain pump that I could push the button whenever I wanted. Now, I am not saying that I abused the pain button, but my oh my did it make me hallucinate! I saw big pink flowers, a gerbil, the hamburgler, and a re occuring monkey that I named collin, it was all very amusing and strange! The good news is my head is flat, not like a baby laying on the floor to long flat, but like normal flat, I have no spinal fluid accumluating in my head, and my CT scans came back GOOD! They took the spinal shunt out, and my head is still flat, and I am feeling good,no headaches, and I got my stitches out today. Although I do miss my monkey collin a little :( I hope this is the end of my journey. I do feel as though I have been given a second chance at life and plan to use every minute of is to the fullest extent, I am going to do all the things that I have always said I was going to do, but never have, it's time to start living baby!

GOSH I just LOVE riding in ambulances.

So, I got out of the hospital yesterday for a whopping 5 hours! I went to my aunts in sandy utah, took a nap, and woke up with a terrible headache, and my head was swelling and leaking again. Called the Doc and he basically told me to deal with it, and then told my aunt if I had a seizure I would be fine and not to call the ambulance unless I STOPPED BREATHING! WHAT THE F***!

So, decided to get a second opinion and my aunt called the ambulance and they took me to the University of Utah, where I met a few wonderful neurologists who called my doctor at st marks and basically told him where to go and how to get there. Of course my Doc back peddled and said that there was a miscommunication, and he was very worried and was sending an ambulance immediatly to pick me up. The next morning my doctor met with the neuro team at the University, drained my head again, and tomorrow a shunt will be put in my back again, and could be followed by a permanent shunt put into me head. WOW

Not Done Yet~

So I have been back in the hospital for about a week now, my initial brain surgery has been re done, and the patch over my brain replaced with my own tissue. This all started last sunday, I felt perfectly fine and went to the basement to take a nap, feeling just fine. I woke up a while later passed out in the basement bathroom, I had no idea who I was, what I was doing, I couldn't breath, or move. Oddly enough I had lost my pajamas too, I know it sounds like the beginning of a lifetime movie! After what seemed like forever I figured out how to get the bathroom door open and crawled back to my room, I yelled for help and my mom came down and I tried my best to explain to her that I was so confused and did not know what was going on. My mom called my brother and he came over to see if he could help get me up the stairs, I didn't even recognize my own brother, and he says I kept insisting my name was Collin. The ambulance was finally called and I was taken to the hospital in preston for a CT scan. After a few hours I started to come back around, and started being able to recognize myself, my family and friends. It turns out I had a grand mal seizure while I was in the basement previously. The ambulance drove me back to salt lake to St. Marks and I was admitted that night. The next night I had another seizure in the middle of the night while I was in my hospital room, good thing my sister Annika was there she was able to go find a nurse and get some help.When I finally came out of the seizure, I guess I looked up at the nurses and said "What can I help you with?" Seizures are a very weird thing, I don't remember anything about them, it's almost like doing a hard reset on the computer! After all of that I am feeling pretty good, hopefully I am almost done with all of this! Nothing is worse than waking up in a strange place, not knowing who you are, and minus your pajamas, especially if you can't blame it on the tequilla~