A lot has happened the last couple of months, mostly pain for Bri and I.  We are better known as the McCuistion cripples.  My mom calls often to check on us, and she always starts out by saying, "how are the patients at the McCuistion Hospital?"  

We have managed to have some fun in between though.......

Dipping Easter Eggs!!

Brevan enjoying all his Easter candy.

I never thought I would see Bri holding a fur ball.

This is Lu Lu, she is going to be the best little mouser in all of Lehi...she has to be to earn her keep.  Lu Lu has decided that Porter is her favorite guy, she looooves him.

 

 

So in April I was walking along, and I tried to amputate my toe from the rest of my foot.  Somehow I managed to snag what I will call my "ring toe", on the leg of a chair.  How did I do that you ask?  Sheer luck and pure talent.  I immediately fell to the ground chanting, "owie, owie, owie, owie" while rolling from side to side on my back  holding my foot.  Meanwhile, after terrifying both babies, they started screaming hysterically while standing over the top of me. All three of us were a mess.  It is hard to tell from the picture, but my whole toe, the top-sides-and underside all turned purple.  Now, over two months later, it is still an owie. When I do something, I give it 150%.

I think all my chattering wore Brevan right out!

 

Kyah is in ballet now, and she absolutely loves it.  She would do a recital every night if she could.

 

The kids got these little buckets, and boy do they love them...to wear as a hat.  Holden can't resist having one continually on his head.  I have taken several pics throughout, and will just label them "the bucket" (you'll know what I mean). The down side to "the bucket", is that it makes his head stink.  He sweats bullets under that thing!  I started spraying it with Lysol everyday, but I noticed today that Bri hid it on a high shelf in the closet.  Party pooper.

Porter's pinewood derby car..."The Batmobile".

Kyah at her Let's Play Music Recital

Holden loves balls and sports in general.  Since Porter has been doing baseball, that is the current sport Holden likes to practice.  He looks seriously adorable (I think that must come from my side of the family).   Kidding!!!

He also smiles now by squishing up his whole face.  Again, adorable (we all know where that comes from....remember??!)

Porter's piano recital.
 

"the bucket"

I always tell the kids, "we don't care where you go to school as long as you go".  (But isn't red kind of a nice color? Although, Brev does look really happy about blue?!)

Porter on his birthday, he had a game so we celebrated before we left.  He turned 9!!

 This is the boys' birthday party with the whole extended family.  Brevan turned 2.  I missed everything due to my head being encased in ice.

Brev loves to sing "Happy Birthday", and this is him singing it!

 Now, the extra fun and exciting story begins.  I will start at the beginning, so brace yourself for a lengthy-yet disturbing tale (with one graphic picture).  Buckle up kids, it's a wild ride.
A few years ago I had what I would call a minor tooth ache.  So being the good little dental patient that I am (I've never missed a 6 month check-up in my life), I make an appointment.  I go in and he says he is not sure what is going on, but he thinks we should do a root canal.  I very stupidly agree.  He does the canal and I see the x-ray of the finished product.  I then comment to him, "doesn't the canal filling material have to go to the tip of the root?" (Unfortunately this was not my first root canal so I was able to tell it looked different from the others.) He assures me that it is done perfectly and you shouldn't go to the tip of the root, no problem. I go against my better judgement and accept what he says (I could slap myself for it now).  I go along my merry way, occasionally having twinges in that tooth.  I'm not sure how much time passes, but I end up having to have a filling put in the tooth right behind it (that tooth felt GREAT until the same dentist put the filling in).  Then every time I would bite down, it sent me through the roof.  This time I go to an endodontist to do the root canal in that tooth.  He takes an x-ray and since it is right next to the other one he notices the poor workmanship on it.  He then says, "that's going to need a retreatment" (that is a root canal in a tooth that has already had a root canal). I exclaim, "I knew it!"  So time moves along and Jan. 2011 hits, and my tooth starts killing me.  I take a round of antibiotics (you can do this a couple times before you have to have a retreatment) and go on with life. Then comes May 2011 and my tooth starts killing me again.  I take a round of antibiotics and nothing changes, it still is killing me.  This was about 6 weeks ago, I'm counting.  Well, I have to go in for the retreatment.  What I didn't know was that my new BFF was about to become Dr. Stucki.  As he is doing the retreatment, he finds the root that is giving me trouble.  He cannot get down to the tip of the root.  I'll have to say he had pretty much broken out into a sweat by now.  He went and had a little snack and came back.  He then said, "hear that" and it just sounded like a drill drilling.  Then he said, "hear this" and it was a clicking every time the drill would spin.  He said there was a tool broken off in there and that was the clicking sound. (He later told me his heart sank when he found that tool.)  He was able to finally get past the tool and get to the tip of the root.  I then went home with pretty much the whole left side of my head and face numb.  Which I can't stand being numb, but I do admit I hate pain worse.  The next 4 days were some of the worst of my life.  The pain was so intense and severe I can't really describe it with words.  We were keeping in fairly good contact with my BFF, but I was seriously dying.  It felt like a contraction at a 10, posterior baby, with no break like a contraction has.  I've tried that pain out before too, not fun. So, I am now on my 3rd day post retreatment and my lower jaw, chin, and lip goes numb.  We call my BFF and he says that the tooth is a lemon and it needs to be extracted.  I scoff at that of course, and tell him "no way, you're crazy, there is no chance I am going to be missing a tooth, especially after all the suffering, pain, and money I have already spent."  That was a big fat NO in my book!  He said he would let me go one more day, but that the numbness was very serious and not to be played with. He upped my antibiotic and I kept my head packed in ice.  It was another night of zero sleep.  The next morning he checked on me.  In our conversation he said, "I would be happy to meet you at the office this morning and pull your tooth."  I responded by saying, "I would be happy to meet you at your office and pull your tooth, how does that sound?". He laughed for some reason and said he would meet me the next morning and he would try to find an assistant to be able to help.  I told him to keep the faith, that the feeling was going to come back and that would not be necessary.  (Keep in mind it is Brevan birthday, a Sunday, and Memorial Day weekend-timing is everything.)  So, I somehow make it in the car to my mom's house to celebrate the birthdays.  I however do not surface and miss the whole party. At 6:00 Bri calls my BFF and he says to sign me up, I can't stand it for one minute longer.  He says he will try to quickly find an assistant and to meet him there at 8:00 pm. Yea me.    

This is me looking my worst.  No sleep for 3 nights, unbearable pain for 4 days, numb face everywhere but where it hurt, and forget about a shower, combing my hair, or a drop of make-up.  I will admit it took a few shots to get this one right.  I was trying to give my saddest most upset face.  I think I did a pretty fair job of it!  I just happened to have my camera on me because of the birthdays-lucky. 

No explanation needed.

 So, while he is working on pulling this tooth, I hear crunching and cracking and all sorts of sounds that no one wants to hear coming from their mouth.  It felt and sounded like every single tooth in my lower jaw was being moved and cracked out of my head.  Since it was a root canal treated tooth it was really brittle.  It just kept breaking like glass.  He said it would have been nice for me to have been asleep....it would have been nice to not be in this perdicament at all if you ask me.  Anyway, after working for about an hour, and sweating buckets (both of us) it was finally done.  He had to cut the tooth in half to get it out.  And when he pulled out the offending root, he says "see that, that is not normal".  I see a big blob on the end of my tooth as he is putting it on the counter, so Bri can take a picture of it of course.  Even with all the shots I had, this really hurt when it got pulled out.  So that ball on the end of the root, should NOT be there.  My tooth and jaw were totally infected.  I am then sent home to endure more pain.  The fun part is about to start.   

I have to take an antibiotic called Clyndomycin (however it is spelled) and so I take it like a good little girl.  And Monday (the very next day) I say to Bri, "it feels like a pill got stuck".  The next time I tried to swallow anything, including my own spit, I had terrible pain in my esophagus.  I was doubled over.  Turns out the pill dissolved in my esophagus before it hit my stomach, and wham-o, "pill induced esophagitis".  I had to stop taking the antibiotic and the Ibprofen because both of those can be hard on the system.  Fantastic, I really needed this.  For the next 12 days I could not swallow hardly anything.  I could only drink Slim Fast in big gulps, it would kill me but I got it down quick.  I was also starving to death.  I would express to Bri daily how hungry I was, but that I didn't feel like I would ever be able to eat anything again.  I have a love affair with food, so this was so troubling.  I love my food, and I could not eat it, but I wanted to sooooooo....BAD!

 Well, time goes on and I am still in incredible pain and only taking Tylenol.  I end up brushing my teeth, what was left of them, every hour to try to kill the bad taste.  I am up every two hours getting a new ice pack and wishing I could just take another Tylenol-which hardly does anything anyway.  I go on for days and days like this.  Still keeping in contact with my BFF, who I think was starting to get tired of talking to me every second. I was feeling like he might be thinking I was a hypochondriac, but I still had tons of pain plus the esophagus thing. He said, "I don't think you have a dry socket." So, onward and upward.  We go on a trip I have planned since December down to Tuacahn and Zion's.  I have my ice pack and Slim Fast available at every second.  Oh, the Slim Fast tasted woody to me at first, but by the end I had acquired a taste for it.  When that is the only thing you swallow, it starts looking and tasting pretty good.
This had to be one of the worst trips of my life, the pain and discomfort was unbearable.  My whole body was sick. And this whole time my face is still numb, making me crazy. Commit me to the nearest psych ward, because I am coo coo.
 We get back from St. George and Bri calls my BFF again, saying it looks like you can see my jaw bone way down there.  That was a Sunday and he says to just keep my appointment on Thurs. and he will check it out.  So I go in for my appointment and he says it's usually teenagers getting their wisdom teeth out that have a dry socket.  It is not common for a dry socket to happen on this tooth. He takes a look in there and lone behold...dry socket.  Yea me again.  He says how he can't believe that I have this on top of everything and that it just adds insult to injury....thanks.  The unfortunate thing was that it had been 11 days since the extraction and it had finally started to heal on its own.  He said it put me back 3-4 weeks in the healing process.  He checked my numbness and reminded me that it is a really slow process and it can take up to a year.  I failed to mention that everything forward of that tooth became numb because of all the infection where that tooth was.  It essentially pinched the nerve off at that point because of all the pressure, and nerve damage occurred as a result.  It is the nerve that runs along the interior part of your jaw bone.                                      Another week and a half passes and it is finally time to see the oral surgeon.  I am anxious to get this thing rolling, ready to find out about an implant.  Not ready to pay for all this, but ready to try to be somewhat normal again.  I go in just this last Tuesday and the OS sits next to me and says......you have to have a bone graft.  What??!!  I am about on the verge of tears now, and can't believe my luck.  He said that the bone is pretty much gone and basically turned to powder between the infection and the extraction.  I still have to heal from the extraction for 2 more months on top of the 1 month I have already gone through.  He then tells me it will take 5 months after the graft is done to heal from it.  At that point they can see about doing an implant.  So next year at this time I might be getting close to being all put back together.  He also reiterated that it can take up to 1 year for feeling to come back, but that it usually does.  Now if you have ever had unpleasant feelings toward another human being, you are going to be with me on this.  The whole time the OS was talking, I was wanting to strangle the original dentist.  I have thoughts of yanking every one of his teeth out one by one with no anesthetic.  Let him hear his bones cracking.  All this as a result of him being negligent.  I want to rip his face off really.  After my BFF pulled my tooth, he said he could not believe any dentist would break a tool off, fill in the top part of the tooth, and  let a patient walk out the door like that. So, I am now starting my 5th week of being numb, my body is almost recovered.  The big grand canyon hole is still painful, but totally tolerable.  I have not chewed on that side of my mouth for about 7 weeks now, totally annoying.  I bite my cheek regularly because it is so numb.  I HATE not being able to kiss Bri properly, if you know what I mean....I can't even feel it.  It feels like I drool, although I do drool over him under normal circumstances (hottie). I really miss kissing my kids too.  The whole thing is one big fat rip off. I almost forgot, I keep forgetting to bring my false tooth with me, and we have had to go back home and get it twice.  Today when we left for my mom's house Kyah says, "did you remember your teeth"?  I love that my 6 year old reminds me to not leave the house without my teeth-fantastic!  I thought there might be a chance of that when I was like 90, not 35!

 Now, for the last 2 1/2 weeks Bri has had his own fun.  One night his ankle started killing him.  He has been hobbling around the house like a cute little gimp ever since.  His ankle has been really swollen and bruised at one point.  We have been calling it the phantom illness, because it came on for no apparent reason...more on this later....

Cute, cute, cute!!!

Kyah's Kindergarten Graduation

Kyah and Mrs. Ellsworth

Porter and Mrs. Matthews

 So, our glorious trip to St. George and Zion's was quite a flop.  Plus, Bri is a terrible photographer.  I take a million pictures of everything and he takes hardly any pictures of anything.  So the photos from our trip are really skimpy.

Kyah and Grandpa

 We get to Tuachan and are ready to go in.  I was not in the best of moods.  I somehow dragged myself to the show and did not enjoy even one minute of it.  But we get there and they say they will not allow anyone under the age of 2 in and that they had a policy change.  I bought my tickets the first day they went on sale in December and there was no policy chance at that point. There is no way my kids were not coming in with me.  Don't mess with me when I am feeling like this lady (that is what I wanted to say).  Long story short, my kids came in with me, but only after weeping and whaling and gnashing of teeth. 

 

This was on the bus in Zion's, where I spent 100% of my time.  Did not even get off, felt like crap.  But this is Holden's cute little smile he always does now.

Bri's little frowny face, my swollen face.

"the bucket"

Porter getting his Wolf.

We went to Bri's mom's side reunion.  I remember it well, it was the first day I was able to swallow anything without tons of pain.

I was down stairs for a second and I came up to find the boys had managed to climb up on the counter.  They got into the markers and bit just about every tip off, then thew them on the floor.

Holden dined on a black marker.

some of the discarded markers

Brevan has the soap in his hands, trying to clean up.

Very happy about it.

Brevan really satisfied with himself as well.

 I like to grow my hair out to donate about every 5 years.  These are pictures of me when I actually have curled it and done it.


 

Right before I left to get it cut.

 

 The night before I got it cut, I told Kyah about it.  She loves long hair, so it upset her when I told her.  That kind of got me going.  I started freaking out a little.  She mentioned that I was not going to be her mom anymore if I had short hair.  I reassured her that it was no big deal and that women out there need wigs because they can't grow hair of their own.  I would always be her mom no matter how long my hair is.  
 

After the big cut.

 So I get it cut, and I am totally feeling sad.  I feel half naked and like my hair is as short as Brian's practically.  I seriously felt like it was really, really short.  I look at it now and I obviously can see that it still has some length, and I don't look like I have a butch hair cut.  I decided it was because I lost too many things in a short time, my tooth, feeling in my face (which makes me feel like I look like a total reject, even though I look perfectly normal to everyone), and my hair.  I really am good with it, and I really like the fact that I have good hair that can be made into a nice wig for someone.  That is the purpose of why I even grow it so long.  I am getting use to it and so are Kyah and Bri for that matter!

He's a real hot rodder!!

Brevan will put on 3 pairs of shorts and then say "cute"!  That is what he is doing here.

 

"the bucket"

Bri on Father's Day.  He doesn't like the U or anything like that.

  

The happy newly weds.

Celebrating Brevan's birthday a month late, with his birth family.

Well, 3 days ago Bri finally went in to get an x-ray of his foot.  They are not quite sure what is exactly going on, but he is stuck wearing this darling little boot.  So, we will continue on here at the McCuistion Hospital.  Please bring money, flowers, meals, and gifts when you come to visit.  Thank You.