My Little Bubble Boy

Graham's family knows how allergic Graham is to everything, and I've told the story about Graham getting hives from a used basketball jersey last year...

But Graham's recent allergy experiences really are almost too much to take..

First though.. Let's take it back a bit, to February/March of 2008 when we were first married.
--Graham decided to get a Snicker's bar and he ate it before dinner. Graham wasn't allergic to peanuts, so he figured it was ok even though it may have some tree nuts in the bar according to the package. When he found a hive on his hip about 30 minutes later.. he started FREAKING out..

He literally tore all of his clothes off and was pacing around the house.

Imagine my face.. "Um, honey.. Why are your clothes off?"
Graham: "I don't know. I'm itchy!"
Me: "Are you going to shower?"
Graham: "I don't know!"
Me: "Well dinner is ready and getting cold... Do you mind if I eat now?"

Graham proceeded to take his plate of food and sat on the couch, naked, and started eating dinner. Me: "Um, what do you think you're doing? That's nasty. Put some clothes on!"

Obviously, Graham goes nuts (nice pun eh?) when he gets a hive, and I don't have any sympathy for allergies or hives.

Graham stopped going to the allergist in Portland when we met for an unknown reason.. But he found one up here and got all of his tests done again in November. Let me list his allergies:

trees

grass

tomatoes

watermelons

honeydew melons

cantaloupe

cherries

celery

cabbage

corn

apples

apricots

peaches

nectarines

green beans

shellfish (including shrimp)

all nuts (including peanuts), except walnuts and macadamia nuts

soy

milk

oats

barley

wheat

flax

mustard

I believe that's the whole list. And no, I'm not making that up. An allergy to healthy food. The allergist partly blamed it on me because I made Graham all healthy and made him eat whole grains and fruits/vegetables. We don't take all of the allergies seriously, like the wheat one (but I don't buy whole wheat bread anymore), but Graham stopped eating fresh apples and milk, and his headaches have all but disappeared.

But he has had an incident lately. His allergies give him severe sinus infections, with severe congestion. He took some antibiotics in December, but the infection is back in full force..

Anyways, Graham came home from church basketball the other night with a crazy story.. Why is it the crazy stuff always happens at church ball games?

Graham and another kid were going up for a rebound or something, and the other kid came down on Graham's right side of his face with his elbow.. HARD. Graham fell to the floor and almost blacked out. He felt a crackling noise in his nose and felt fluid pouring out of his nose.

He assumed his nose was broken and that it was bleeding profusely all over his face, shirt, and gym floor. When he opened his eyes and wiped his nose, the color was orange/yellow, kind of the color of Mountain Dew...

His sinus emptied out on the floor!! He said it took 3 paper towels to soak it up..

And man, have I been obsessed with trying to clear out his OTHER sinus (his left side). I keep trying to karate chop his left eye/nose area to.. you know.. "help him out". But Graham won't let me do it for some reason...

Might as well..

Ok, so the cat is somewhat out of the bag with this secret we’ve been keeping.. My family unfortunately found out, and now I’m just going to announce it.. (Sorry Graham’s family if you’re finding out here. It’s kind of an awkward thing to tell someone out loud.) I haven’t even told Graham I’m announcing it. Ooops.

We’re trying to have a baby.

There.. I said it.

Anyways, last March (yeah.. that long ago), we received personal revelation that we should start trying to have a baby. We originally were planning on waiting until December of ’09, so it was a bit of a surprise to get that strong of an impression. We talked it over and prayed about it. I can’t even describe what a spiritual moment it was in our house. I get tears just thinking about it..

I didn’t want to tell people at all because I didn’t want people (especially my family) to ask me questions I didn’t have the answers to (e.g. how are you going to manage a full-time job and a baby, or how is Graham going to help with bills while he’s going to school full-time?), or telling me we should wait. Personal revelation is just that—personal. I’d never felt more right about anything, except maybe to marry Graham. That’s why I felt like keeping a secret from everybody.

Anyways, we’ve had some ups and downs during this whole process. 3 doctor’s visits and 1 early miscarriage later, I’ve gotten so downhearted it’s been hard to feel happy for other people and their pregnancies. I never thought it would be so hard. I just thought it’d happen within a month and POOF, I’m pregnant. I get so jealous when I see people's pictures of their cute little kids and just wonder when it's going to happen to us..

On Monday, finding out I was not pregnant had to be one of the hardest nights of my life. No, it wasn’t a miscarriage or anything like that.. I just assumed I was pregnant after trying for what feels like forever. I cried inconsolably for hours. Poor Graham was trying to say the right things, but he only made me angrier. I was losing my faith. We have been doing all of the right things: praying, paying tithing, studying scriptures, serving faithfully in our callings, etc. Plus, Graham has been having a hard time finding a job in this crappy little town, and it only made it worse. I kept saying, “when is it going to be enough?”, “I don’t know how much more I can take!”, and my personal favorite (which I can laugh about now), “Well I don’t want a baby if it doesn’t want me!”.

I just really felt the need to express my feelings, because I have been struggling over the pas few days. Oh, and my grandpa is dying... Just to add one more difficult thing to my life…

Really sir?

I can't go into much detail about this one due to HIPAA and everything, but this experience was a first at this hospital...

A patient hit on me.

No, not an 85 year-old blind man, but a 41 year-old man with some serious problems.

Does that count as a compliment?

The dog with 9 lives

So, my last post directed at private bloggers was a bust.. Thank you Mallory for being the only respondent.

Ok, so funny story.. I have been saving this for a long time since our camera wasn't working..

I have a stuffed husky dog from 2000 when the cheer team I coached for (the "Huskies") gave me one in appreciation for my 4 years of coaching. I've always kept this dog on my bed as kind of a neck pillow of sorts. I had it in college, and yes, I still use it as a married woman. It supports my head quite nicely.

However, Graham hates my dog. HATES it. Let me demonstrate his hatred...
The 2 other death scenes not pictured included a "roasted dog on a spit" scene in our fireplace, and a worried phone call from Graham about our vacuum being broken, but it was my dog who was cruelly stuffed into the vacuum bag area.

My dog is STILL alive though.. I just need to clean him from his time spent in the vacuum. I have since adapted to sleeping with a beanbag mini football (Graham's idea), which broke open in our bed, and now nothing...

I miss my Husky.

I guess all I have to do is wash him.

Private Blogs

I'm going to go out on a limb here...

If you are reading my blog regularly, and you have a private blog.. I would appreciate the reciprocation and be able to read yours regularly as well.

It annoys me when I see which people are clicking from which sites, and I don't have access to them. What if you're trashing my blog?! Just kidding.. I don't write anything interesting enough for people to talk trash about me. But seriously though, my curiosity has been piqued and I want to read your private blog!! I mean, we somehow are connected enough for you to read about my life, so let's make it official..

So, if you're willing to extend a branch of bloggership, please send an invite to your private blog to sher (dot) fech (at) gmail (dot) com.

Happy new year?... No such thing

Seinfeld anyone?

Well, Graham and I had an eventful night last night.. We chaperoned a youth church activity from 7-9:30 at the ice skating rink. I finally talked Graham into ice skating with me after the activity was almost over. Disappointingly, he did not fall. We went to bed around 10:30 and only woke up at midnight from our neighbors' obnoxious fireworks outside.

Obviously, I hate New Years Eve. It's not a real holiday.

Anyways, here are some of our family's highlights from 2009:

--I learned how to swallow pills.
--I confessed to my addictions.
--Graham and I survived our health problems.
--I had a bad experience with fish.
--I encountered a mystery at my work.
--We took some road trips.
--I had an unfortunate misunderstanding at work.
--Graham got what he deserved for losing something special.
--I purchased a car for the first time.
--I got a wake up call.
--I agonized over stupid baby names.
--We celebrated Graham's 24th birthday.
--I learned that life is not perfect.
--Graham is going to get a good education.
--I proved that I need to wear a helmet.

Wish you all the best of luck over the next year.. and please Lord, do not make 2010 any worse than 2009....