10/25/13 Just Truckin'...

Sorry I missed blogging last week, I was in Portland with BYU at the AAMFT conference they sent us to.  And I've been playing catch up all week after getting close to no sleep, expending way more energy than I'm used to, and blowing off my homework at the conference.  But now I'm in class, and predictably, I'm less-than-interested in the lecture today, so I can finally catch up on the blog!

Pre-hike excitement/hesitations.

The view from the top!

So we left off with quite the cliffhanger about whether or not I'd be able to achieve my 5-year goal to hike the Y during homecoming week with the lights on it.  And guess what?  I DID IT!!!  Dave didn't let me get out of it when I complained that I was too tired to do it, and I'm so glad he pushed me.  The actual hike wasn't all that great of course, because the Y isn't too great of a hike to begin with, but once we got to the top, we were like the only ones there and it was so beautiful to see Provo at night :)

So that was my date I picked for last weekend and then we threw it back to our dating days and got hot chocolate at 7-eleven (best hot chocolate in the world!) and came home and watched one of our 7 shows we record every week.  Is that ridiculous??  In a matter of 2 weeks, 7 of our favorite shows started new seasons and literally every single show is on Thursday nights.  Glad we have a DVR!

So then that next Sunday the choir performed and it was fun!  We were missing about half of our regulars because it was Fall Break for our school districts, but I just really enjoy conducting and it was fun to have more people than usual up there.  The best part about performing was that now we get to start working on our Christmas program!!  Yay :)

At the start of the week, I went back to my doctor since my pain's been getting worse.  He spent some more time going over all my case notes from the past few years and doing more tests and things.  He actually thinks it might not just be endometriosis because the really acute pain isn't very typical for endo pain.  He thinks it might have to do with a trapped or irritated nerve.

Now, after doing my own research a few months ago, this is what I suggested to my previous doctors because it's really consistent with ALL of my symptoms, but I got nay-sayed and decided to just go ahead with the surgery anyway.  I am grateful I did the surgery because it was great to have a diagnosis and to minimize the general pain, but we think that by taking away some of the broad pain, this specific lower left pain has become more poignant because there's nothing to detract from it anymore.

I'll be going in on Tuesday for a nerve-block injection which will hopefully help with the pain symptoms, and if it works, it'll be diagnostic as well.  If it minimizes the pain we'll know this has more to do with the nerves than endometriosis and then from there we'll make a decision about our next step in treatment.  I'm anxious because I don't do well with needles at all (understatement of the century...), and especially not painful needles, which these nerve-blocks tend to be.  I think Dave's going to take some time off to come with me to Salt Lake when I get it done, and I just hope I'll be functional right afterwards because I don't really have time to slow down with life right now.

This is off google, but it literally looked like this...amazing!!

On Thursday of last week, I drove to Portland in a BYU van with 4 other people from my cohort and it was a blast, but a loooong drive.  Needless to say, we all know each other much better now, haha.  I think I'll do a whole separate post on Portland because it was really really great, but there's so much to say about it, and lots of pictures I want to put up :).  I don't think we could've gone at a more beautiful time.  The fall colors were just stunning!!

So that'll be another post, but I'll talk about what Dave did while I was gone.  It was my Dad's 50th birthday present to fly up to Utah and go fishing for a weekend in Wyoming with his sons.  Dave was stoked obviously because he loves fishing.  They got a guide and had the best day of fly fishing of their lives!  They caught fish that were basically 2 feet long and altogether I think they caught about 35 fish or something.  It was so fun to see Dave and my Dad so excited, carefree, and happy to be out doing what they love :)

He looks soo happy :)  And he had a bigger salmon too, but I think this fish
is prettier...so that's the one that made the cut, haha.

Jeremy, Russ, and Dave...brrr!

Grinning from ear to ear!

And the man of the hour with his beautiful brown!!  (p.s. Don't miss his Mickey Mouse hat.)

So the trip was a great success, even though it was freezing cold, they told me.  Dave and I were grateful to be back together on Sunday night to kind of reconnect after being apart for a few days.  After catching up, we both buckled down and got to work catching up.  So this week has been a little bit crazy with too much homework and class time on top of being tired from our weekends.

I still absolutely love my program though.  Still can't wait to see clients!  And I'm getting closer to being able to I think.  Not because I think I'm ready as a therapist, but because I'm almost done with all the assignments that need to be done before I can be cleared to see clients.  It's been fun to start going to therapy for myself as part of the program.  Things I never even knew I needed help with I'm getting help with, it's been great!

I'm about to start exposure therapy to combat my arachnophobia and then eventually my phobia of needles too.  We're hoping if I can eliminate the fear of spiders I can eliminate the nightmares about them.  Wish me luck!  I get anxious and short of breath just thinking about it, but I'm ready to be done freaking out about bees, spiders, and needles.  I hope it works!

So overall, we're happy, healthy, and just truckin' through life right now.  Hopefully I'll get my post about Portland up soon before I forget everything :)  I'll keep you posted!  (pun intended...Dave would be proud...)