Oh my WORD, I’ve been meaning to hop on here a gazillion times the past week or so, but I haven’t! My life has been so so so challenging this past month, as I’m sure y’all can imagine. AND when ya throw Christmas stuff on top of it….it equals pure insanity.
I realized the other day that it was just over a month ago when we took Kev to the hospital for the first time. Can I just say that I’m SO GLAD that month is over!??!!
So glad.
So glad.
Holy cow.
I’m very happy to say that Kev is actually doing very, very well now!! I took a cute picture of him last week to show y’all how good he looks! He’s been working part time the past couple of weeks.
He really seems to get better every single day. There’s no way to tell how the blood clots in his lungs, leg and arm are doing (they don’t like to expose him to too much radiation), but as far as we can tell they are doing okay.
His energy has increased a lot, the pain from the clot in his arm is completely gone and the pain from the clot in his leg is very minimal. I like to think that’s a good sign! FYI, the clots in his arm and leg caused him a LOT of pain. He could barely even walk because his leg hurt him so much. Sooooo, I’m thrilled that he has very little pain now.
He has an appointment with a hematologist in January and we’ll know a lot more after that (they’ll determine how his clots are doing and what his risk of getting more clots in the future is.)
I’ve had A LOT of people ask me the same questions about Kev’s blood clots, so I thought I’d answer some of them here for those of you that want to know.
- How did Kev know he had blood clots?
- Well, we didn’t know for sure and we certainly didn’t know he had any in his lungs. He had severe pain in his thigh and it was a little swollen. At first we thought the pain could be from exercise (he’d been trying to exercise his knee that he had ACL surgery on.) However, the pain in his leg just kept getting worse and worse. He also felt like he’d get out of breath easier, but it wasn’t extremely obvious.
- Kev has had a couple blood clots in the past, but they’ve never been the DVT variety. The pain he felt this time was exactly how his past blood clots felt, only this time it was more severe.
- Why did Kev get blood clots?
- Most people don’t just form blood clots spontaneously, however some people do! The people who just form blood clots for no reason are usually on blood thinners their whole life.
- Kev had plenty of reasons for getting his blood clots. First off, people who have Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis are three times more likely to get blood clots. Also, it’s very, very common for people who have been hospitalized or sick for an extended period of time to get blood clots. Basically when your body is not moving a lot for an extended period of time, your blood can clot easier.
- When Kev was in the hospital, he wore electric compression type socks that would tighten and loosen around his legs. That was supposed to minimize his chance of getting clots. Later on we found out that nowadays every single person who is hospitalized for any reason gets a shot in their stomach every day to thin the blood, EXCEPT patients who are actively bleeding. Well, Kev was one of those “actively bleeding” patients, so he didn’t get the shots.
- Kev wonders if the clots were forming before he was ever hospitalized because he’d already been laying down at home a lot for several days. Who knows???
- Basically Kev had many reasons why he got the blood clots. We should have been better at trying to prevent clots (having him move and walk around more), but quite frankly we were all consumed with everything else he had going on that we didn’t even think about clots!!!
Kev’s Crohn’s has been doing very well too. He was so so so sick guys. It was so scary to see him wither away, be in so much pain and have absolutely no color in his face. I hate that he has an autoimmune disease that can just pop up and wreak havoc on his body at any time.
BUT, I’m so grateful for modern medicine! He’s been on Remicade for about a month and it’s seriously been a miracle drug for him. It’s a biologic infusion type drug (it’s administered via IV and takes about 2-3 hours.) He got his first infusion in the hospital, the second infusion two weeks later, he will get his third infusion at the 6 week mark and then will continue to get them every 8 weeks.
He noticed an improvement within 24 hours of his first infusion and he noticed HUGE improvements after his second infusion. He seems almost completely healthy to me now, although he still has a few minor symptoms. I sure hope the Remicade will continue to work for him. I’ve heard that it can eventually stop working for some people. 🙁 However, there are several other infusion type drugs they can try if it does. Thank heavens.
I’m so so so so grateful to have my husband back guys, although I almost feel like I have PTSD. I don’t really have PTSD, but it’s just hard to “go back to normal” after going through such a scary trial. It’s hard for me to trust that my husband is healthy and will stay healthy!
My emotions have been all over the place. There have certainly been days when I’ve been a complete and utter wreck. This past month has been filled with so many moments of worry, fear, sadness, sheer terror and pure sorrow. Strangely enough, I’ve also had moments of intense joy and gratitude.
I had a weird moment the other day when my heart was just full of gratitude. I realized that I’d been so consumed by all of the stress and worry this past month that I’d failed to see all of the blessings!
I’m so grateful my husband is alive! I’m so grateful for modern medicine and that he is getting better! I’m so grateful he has a great job that has been very understanding and compassionate! I’m so grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life who have prayed for us, cared for us, reached out to us, brought us meals and offered to help us in so many ways! I’m so grateful for my faith and church and I really don’t know how in the world I could navigate through life without it.
I’m so grateful that even in the midst of trials, I still have SO MUCH to be grateful for! I know this all sounds super cheesy, but all of these thoughts just flooded my mind and I was grateful for the perspective.
I know we all go through hard times. Sometimes those hard times can seem smothering and unbearable. BUT, even through those hard times, we can always look for the good.
I’m sure hoping life can calm down for a loooooonnnng time and we can just battle with the normal every-day types of trials for a while.
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Well I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season! I love this time of year, although it is sooooo busy! It seems like every year I tell myself, “Next year I’m going to get everything done early so I can just sit back and enjoy the season!” BUT, every year I’m running around scrambling to get everything done at the last minute. Auuuugh.
I have a couple more gifts to buy, presents to wrap, Christmas cards to mail out and the kids’ teacher gifts to deliver and then I am DONE!
…I think
…I hope.
We’ve been doing some fun Christmas things the past couple weeks. My daughter was in a beautiful ballet recital a couple weeks ago and it was so well done. I circled my daughter so you can spot her!
We went to an excellent Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert last weekend featuring Rolando Villazon.
It was fantastic and it was such a nice evening. We went with some great friends of ours that we met when we lived in New Hampshire. These friends just moved back to Utah last year and we’re so happy ’bout it!
I was so grateful to be on an “official” date with Kev too! I was so worried about him the entire night, but he kept assuring me he was “just fine.”
This past weekend we went up to my parent’s house to make our annual Candy Houses! We’ve been making them every year for as long as I can remember and it’s one of my favorite childhood memories.
My mom has a very small kitchen and a LOT of grandkids so it makes for an “eventful” evening. Ha ha. The kids loved making their houses and we all enjoyed eating ALL THE CANDY! I’ve trained my kids to fill their houses full of all their favorite candies too, lol.
My boys are firmly in the “I don’t know how to smile naturally” stage of life, lol. Oh, and my older son made his candy house into a crime scene. Yep. He wrapped yellow licorice around his house as police tape and you can see a dead Santa laying in front of the house.
Yes, it was a proud mother moment for sure!
After decorating candy houses, we went over to my sister’s house for a little bit so we could reenact the Nativity with the kids.
We’ve been doing this with all the cousins for a lot of years too! Sadly, we decided not to do it at my parent’s house this year because my poor dad has Alzheimer’s and after all the candy house craziness, he was stressed out. 🙁
Soooo, I was glad my sister invited us over to her house so our kids could do the Nativity with her kids. I’m just sad my baby was too big to be baby Jesus. Sniff, sniff.
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Well, I’m sure most of you guys don’t want to talk health and fitness this time of year! It’s actually funny because every year in the month of December the traffic on my blog drops in half! Every year. And then it picks up back to normal after Christmas is over!
I really don’t love to be uber healthy this time of year either. I love all of the yummy food and treats and consider it to be part of the joy of the season. I’ve still been pluggin’ along with my typical healthy lifestyle, but I’ve definitely been indulging quite a bit too. It’s been so fun and I’ve been enjoying every minute of it!
I have to say that when Kev was so sick there were days when I hardly ate anything, days when I had no appetite so I just ate healthy stuff and then there were days when I just ate whatever the heck I wanted. I DID NOT care.
I’ve certainly been all over the place. However, I’m so happy because the past few months I’ve finally lost some weight and I’m finally leaning out and toning up. It’s been a LONG TIME comin’ for sure!
I first started noticing some results when I was doing my “no sugar” challenge back in September and October. Since I ended my challenge, I’ve just been sort of, kind of counting macros in my head. It’s actually been awesome and I’ve seen some great results because of it! I’ve also been working out consistently at my gym and I’ve been loving it!!
Guys, my gym (F45) is my happy place. It is such a positive environment and I actually look forward to all of my workouts! I love it so much and am so happy to have it in my life. Cheesy, I know, but I’m being serious!
My gym and my workouts have especially been a great stress reliever to me this past month. I wasn’t able to workout as often as I usually do, but when I was able to go I was so grateful. It helped to keep my mind off of everything and it felt so good to get the blood pumpin’ and endorphins flowin’.
Anyway, I believe the results I’ve been seeing are just from good ol’ fashioned hard work and consistency. I’ve been consistently working out about 4-5 days a week and I’ve been eating well most of the time. However, I’ve been indulging a little bit on the weekends, but it hasn’t seemed to stall my progress at all.
I think that’s because I haven’t turned my weekends into a free for all and I’ve got right back to healthy living as soon as my indulgence is over. It’s been awesome and so liberating to me! It’s so nice to have finally found that balance!
My kids are always making fun of me about all of the strange “healthy” concoctions I come up with. I try to drink a green smoothie or protein shake most days and sometimes I just open up the fridge or freezer and dump whatever needs to be used up in there.
Most of the time my shakes taste good, occasionally they taste a little “interesting” and once in a while they are just awful, BUT I usually drink them up anyway!
The other day I definitely had a “protein shake fail.” A few weeks ago we had a bunch of cut up oranges and I was afraid they were going to go bad before we could use them all. So, I just decided to freeze them for shakes! I thought about removing the peel first, but then I thought, “Meh, I’ll just blend up the peel in my shakes because it will give me extra fiber and nutrients!”
Folks, orange skin is not meant to be blended up in a shake. Just sayin’. It was horrendous!
I drank it down anyway, but I shuddered each time I drank it. I also had a large glass of water nearby and drank some every time I drank my shake. It was pretty nasty.
Lesson learned. I will say that sometimes I put half of a lemon in my shakes (peel and all) and it turns out just fine! I was surprised the orange was so overpowering! Blah.
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Well guys, this post has been all over the place! When I don’t blog for a while, I always have waaaaaay too much to share! I’m hoping that life will calm down a bit now and I can get back to blogging more regularly. I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas!!! xoxo
I’m so happy to learn that Kev is doing better! He looks great!
I always love your Nativity tradition.
Happy holidays!
Thanks so much Char! Kev is finally looking “normal” to me and I’m so happy ’bout it. I’ve always enjoyed our fun little Nativity tradition. <3
You crack me up, finishing that smoothie even though it made you gag!
So happy to hear Kev’s feeling better. I’ve been checking!
Ha ha, I just didn’t want to throw it away!! I’ve made a “note to self” though to never make it again, lol. I’m SOOOO happy Kev is doing better!!!
I AM OVER THE MOON to hear that Kev is doing better – how friggin’ scary! But at least you are pro-active about his issues and don’t just sweep them under the carpet!!
Thank you!! I’m so happy he’s doing better. I’m a little paranoid and a little more “pro-active” then I think he’d like me to be, lol!