My Dark Side...

As you may have noticed from the pics below, i have very dark hair now. There is a story here.. not terribly suspenseful, but there was a lesson learned here. Last Friday at work the proverbial shit hit the fan, it was a bad day to say the least. As immature as it sounds, i felt out of control. So to feel in control of something, I dyed my hair. I talked to Amanda the whole time in Target, found some box of color, then went home and took it out on my hair. Well it didn't go over so well. It wasn't the color i had hoped for and it was incredibly splotchy. Several patches of hair that didn't take to the dye. So I called Jaime, my step sister that does hair and she said she could fix it but not for a few days, but if i did it myself again today to go to Sally's and buy salon quality dye. So i did. And the amazing results: Same damn spots that wont dye. My boss even noticed! Fortunately his wife does hair for a living. So she fixed it for me. Which was fun, I got to spend a few hours getting to know her better and I just love her! Now my hair is a beautiful color and is soft and shiny, and most importantly: the same color all over!
Lesson learned: leave it to the professionals!

Mike's Birthday

Mike's Birthday is January 25 but we're sort of making a weekend out of it. Today (Saturday) we went to Tepanyaki for dinner with his family. His brother and sister-in-law drove down from Logan and we had a fabulous meal! We LOVE Tepanyaki! Then we rushed off to our Grizzlies game. I think there are very few things Mike would chose to do over hockey, and this weekend is full of it! My sister Angela has also acquired a passion for the sport coming along with us to most games, so she and Vivian met us there. It was a fun night!

This is a picture with Tom, who is our favorite chef

Hockey fun!

As you all know, I have a nephew that is to arrive any time now. Mike always has issues with his birthday because one of his best friends wife's birthday is the same day. He says that inevitably we always end up celebrating her birthday and not so much his.. Well as luck would have it, my brother and Aimee called me a few times today to ask some pregnancy/labor questions and sure enough, her water was broken. My nephew will be born sometime soon, and it being after midnight, he will get to share Mike's birthday too. I'm just thrilled that McKaius will be born before I leave for vacation on Tuesday. That has been one of my biggest worries about leaving, that I'd miss seeing him after he's born, but it looks like it will all work out! Even if its one more person to share birthday's with!

Balance

As many of you know I have had major conflict at work. At times this conflict is so painful that I have come to tears by the end of the workday. And just when i think life's not fair, my room mates have been surprisingly pleasant, Mike is wonderful and supportive, my vacation is quickly approaching, and Kristin has agreed to come work with us. I can't even be anymore grateful for the balance this has created in my life. Not that there always has to be something ajar to have good things but at least while some things in my life have gone to pot, others are refreshingly perfect. And with the support of those who love me (and tequila..), i believe i can make it through all the other trials in life. :)

Young at Heart

Happy New Years to everyone! My New Years break from work has been quite eventful. On Thursday, January 1, I got a call from my uncle at about 11:30pm. "They found me a heart" he says. I about fell to the floor. He had an LVAD placed not more than 2 months ago. I thought people stay on the transplant list for months and months I never expected it to be so quick. So cousin Shane (his son) who were both at my mom's house, packed and drove to the University Hospital and I did the same. An hour later, once he's admitted and getting all the pre-op labs and such, they tell us visitors to go home, get some rest, the heart wont be here for 6-8 hours, so we went home. I got a call at about 7 that next morning from my uncle who says that they will take him into surgery that afternoon. I started to worry because they have told us all along that sometimes there can be false alarms for donor hearts and with all the waiting we'd been doing i feared that could be the case.

I had invited people over for the Utes game already and prepared lots of goodies so i stayed home Friday night but I hadn't talked to my uncle since that morning. When i called my uncle and cousin at about 7 pm for an update there was no answer from either so i called the SICU where he was staying, and they told me he was already in surgery, probably started around 630pm and would in the OR for about 5-6 hours. So I stayed home and tried to be a good hostess but the minute the game was over I headed to the hospital. It had been snowing so it took quite some time to get there. When i checked in with SICU at about 1050pm they told me that he was still in surgery and would be until about 1am. So I waited and waited and waited. (I've started The Outlander series so I did read the whole time, which helped pass the hours). I did get updates from the head nurse of SICU, Jaime (who is my cousin's wife's sister-in-law), which was comforting that we had someone that we know watching over my uncle, and Erin (one of the LVAD coordinators) came and talked with me as well. At about midnight or so cousin Shane called and said he just got to the hospital and was up on the third floor (surgery waiting room) and that i should come wait there with him.

Finally at 230am Dr Salesman came and told us that heart was in my uncle now but they were having some trouble controlling all the bleeding but they didn't want to keep him in the OR any longer so they were going to close and just monitor him over the next little bit but there was a chance he would need to go back in again if the bleeding kept up. He told us to go home, That Uncle Robby wouldn't be moved back to his room for an hour and he certainly wouldn't be awake any time soon. So reluctantly, Shane and I went home on the condition that they call us if anything changed. At about 8am the next day (Saturday) I got a phone call from my Uncle Robby himself. He said that he was doing great (obviously since he was calling me himself!) and that everything was grand. I couldn't believe it.

My poor mom, who has been the one caring for him this whole time, took a short vacation down to New Orleans for the Utes game and was crushed that she wasn't here for all of this. Thank goodness those Utes won or i think she would've regretted even leaving. I picked her up from the airport at 1pm Saturday and we headed to the hospital. When we got there my uncle was out of bed in his chair greeting us! I can't even begin to tell you how well he looked. It was a whole new Uncle Rob.

It has been the longest three days but i can hardly believe its real. I am so thankful that he has a new heart and that he's doing so well. Here is a picture of him not even 7 hours from heart transplant giving the thumbs up. He still had several drains from his chest and lots of leads, wires and IV bags but they are getting less and less as the days go by. There are thinking that he'll get to come home in the next 2 weeks.

We know his heart came from Arizona. It was a 28 year old male. So my mom says he's "Young at Heart" now. It's hard to think of a 28 y/o guy. One with parents, siblings, maybe a wife and kids. A guy that is no longer on Earth with the rest of us. It really makes me sad to know that his family is without him now. But whoever they are, I just couldn't ever thank them enough for this new life he's given my uncle. It's the most self-less thing you could ever do and it is why my drivers license will ALWAYS say 'Yes' in the donor box.