The Month of March - Faith

March has been no walk in the park. It started at the beginning of the month. From March 1st through the 4th I was constantly in and out of the hospital and doctors office. After taking a trip to Flagstaff, where I tried to sneak out of Pinon without Brent finding out, I was diagnosed with strep throat and a severe case of tonsillitis. The following week I returned to work and made it through the week successfully. By the time the weekend came around my body was giving up on me again and the stresses of life were starting to wear me down. I broke out in a severe case of hives and was unable to go to work again. A friend of ours came over and gave me a dose of medication to get rid of them. I returned to work on Wednesday. Then the weekend came around again and my tonsils started to swell again leaving me feeling like crap. I took another day off of work to get healthy. All I had to do was make it to Friday, my follow up appointment, and I did. The doctor looked at my tonsils and told me that they are as healthy as they are ever going to get again, they are functioning at a 75% level and NEED to come out. With the wedding a little less than a month away, then one month of school after that, and the summer almost completely booked I was limited on when I could schedule the surgery. I chose June 9th, right after we come back from Utah, with a follow up appointment on June 16th, my 23rd birthday. My mom has decided to come out to keep me company, take care of me, and help me out. But the month of March  does not end there...

On Tuesday the schools secretary brought in several leave slips for me to sign. I thought I had already signed them all and was set, but apparently I missed a few. She asked if they had taken out the large amount yet out of my paycheck and I responded with 'no'. I asked her what she was referring to and she did not give me any specifics. I knew that I had used all of my time up from being sick, but I had not been notified of any withdraws coming out of my paycheck. I contacted someone working in payroll and they told me that on the first paycheck in April they would be withdrawing $900 in leave without pay for being ill. Needless to say, I freaked out. The idea of only having two more paychecks before the wedding and loosing one whole paycheck sent me through the largest panic attack I have ever had. After school I cried, that was all I felt like I could do. During young women's, President Huxhold told me to talk to Doug in payroll, he would be able to give me more solid answers and possible help me come up with a solution. I sent him an email on Tuesday night and got a phone call Wednesday morning. He looked at my situation and told me the things that he could not do and he understood completely that I was in a state of terror. He found an anonymous donor who was willing to give me 40 hours of leave time, the exact amount that was going to be withdrawn from my upcoming paycheck. I was relieved and finally felt like I could breathe. Soon after, my mom called me to tell me that she had $300 for me, and so did my step-mom. For the first time in a month I feel like everything is going to be ok.

The point of this post though is because I feel like God has been teaching me a lesson this month about Faith. Every time something started going wrong I found myself silently saying a prayer or reading my scriptures more diligently in search of an answer. At one point this month, I found myself filled with the spirit as I was able to enter into the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead. I am learning that my faith is stronger than what I allow to show. A friend of mine has made me question my ability to learn and study because of her comments during church. Brent, being male, tried to help with the situation but only made it worse. He soon rephrased what he said into what he meant to say. I know though that God is there for me and if I just take a deep breathe, bow my head, and pray that he will give me the answer and guidance that I am looking for. Brent keeps telling me that everything will work out, and although I hear those words I question if they are true sometimes. Then things like someone willing to give up 40 hours of their personal leave to help someone in need happens and you know it is true. God has taught me a lesson about Faith and in the upcoming weeks I know that I will be a stronger person as I prepare for the next step of my life. In 24 days I will marry the man who has stolen my heart and has become my true soulmate. I love Brent with all of my heart and I know that as God helps me through the turmoils and struggles that Satin lays before me, Brent will be standing right next to me, holding my hand, and telling me that everything will be alright. And I know now, in my heart, that he is right.

Rascal Flatts says it best, 'I won't let go'

The Many Faces Of Reality

Things have been going better in Pinon. My mysterious case of tonsillitis has returned with vengeance and my students have been brats lately. Today was the first day in a long time where being at work was not painful. Evenings with Brent are spent watching movies and assembling our soon to be home together. But unfortunately the bad thing about living away from everyone and everything is that you are the last to find out anything that happens at home...

I made my evening phone call to my mom tonight to talk about a couple of wedding things and to just talk. Toward the end of the conversation I found out the bad news. Around was diagnosed with cancer so was my Aunt Bonnie. Aunt Bonnie is something else and she always had this spunk that made you want to be around her. They had taken out most of the cancer, her colin, and several other internal organs when everything started but recently she has developed a new issue. She has a blood clot within a valve near her heart. They tried using some natural resources to break down the clot. Because of its location, they have to be very careful of what they do. To much pressure on the clot and it could move through her valve, into her heart, and to her brain killing her. As of right now she is stable and in the hospital until further notice.

What makes this an even harsher reality is where her husband is. Don works for a major company and cannot even be with his wife because he is at a conference in Georgia related to the Japan tsunami. The tsunami has now claimed over 6,000 lives with more than 10,000 people missing. But what makes the visual damage worse is the secret killer sweeping through the small island. The Japanese nuclear plant was severally damaged from the water, causing four out of 6 reactors to crack and break. There are workers inside the nuclear plant that have accepted their fate. They have been so severally exposed to radiation that no amount of protection can save them. People living up to 20 kilos from the plant, some 200,000 people, have been evacuated to safer parts of the island. While lose 20 - 30 kilos are under house arrest and cannot leave under any circumstances. If the radiation is not contained it will continue to leak into the air and water causing another catastrophic event. How does this relate to my uncle you ask?  The Japanese government hired my Uncle to design and install the reactor in the plant. He is sitting in Georgia trying to figure out how to save hundreds upon thousands of lives.

The Hardest Thing In Life

November 2010 was the last time that I had spoken to my Aunt Nicole since the death of my grandfather. Before his passing we had several disagreements about my engagement to Brent and when he came home to meet the family she held her tongue because she knew it was not the time or the place. At the funeral I had made a personal decision to not attend a special ceremony in memory of my grandfather, this caused a great deal of turmoil in the family and several broken relationships. We ended our family relationship and had not planned on speaking for some years, if at all. 

For the past two days I have been sitting at home thinking to myself and reading my scriptures. I came to the conclusion that I needed to repent. I needed to ask for forgiveness from Jesus for the things that I had done wrong onto my family and to give me the strength to not necessarily ask for their forgiveness, but begin the process of fixing the bonds that I had caused to break due to my selfishness. 

I began by writing a letter to my Aunt Nicole telling her how sorry I was for causing her so much pain and not apologizing earlier. At that time, I was thinking only about my personal feelings, and although at the time I do not regret making the decision I did, I know now that it was not about myself and that I should have made my decision based upon my families wishes and for my grandfather. I regret that I missed my grandfather's military service and that is something that I can never get back. By the time I had finished the letter I felt that mailing or emailing it was not appropriate, I needed to call her. For the first time since November I picked up the phone and dialed the house number. No one answered so I chose to leave a message. After leaving the message I took some time to prepare my thoughts and emotions by relaxing with a shower. After exiting the shower the phone rang, it was my Aunt Nicole.

I closed the door to my bedroom and answered the phone, she was on the other end. We spoke for about an hour and a half were we calmly exchanged thoughts and feelings. There was no arguing, no yelling, a lot of crying, and forgiveness. I told her that I did not expect to be forgiven bt her the wrong that I had done to the family but she told me that she had forgiven me a long time ago. I told her that I had been wanting to call her for a long time but did not know if she ever wanted to speak to me again. She told me that she had forgiven me a long time ago and apologized for not being the adult and calling me first. She told me that she did not know what prompted me to call her tonight because she thought it would be years before we spoke, but was glad that we could finally talk. For the first time since my grandfather's death I feel at peace. I feel as though I finally understand another piece of myself and that I can practice my faith with more awareness and commitment when learning and studying. 

Nicole and I also spoke about my engagement with Brent. She asked if I truly knew if this is what I wanted and I said yes. She told me that if I loved Brent and this is what I wanted then she is happy for me and will support me. She does not want Brent to feel unwelcome in the family any more than he probably already does because of the conflicts he has witnessed. She wants us to come out to visit this summer but due to finances we are unsure yet if this is a possibility. Maybe we will have to see if we can make it work. I think it might be a wise decision to settle and resolve any remaining family issues that might be occurring. 

I can see know how my faith in the church and the strength within myself has grown in the past several months. If this would have happened a couple of years ago I would have thrown a tantrum and never spoken to the family again. I am glad that I got to speak to my aunt for a while. During the conversation she asked me what I needed from her to make this work better and I replied 'be my aunt and not my mother, and be there when I need someone to talk to.' She said 'I can do that.'

This is for you Aunt Nicole, I love you!

Leading A Boring Life

Brent attended a conference in Scottsdale leaving me in Pinon to fend for myself for 48 hours. I was looking forward to some time to catch up on grades and get back into the swing of things but I never realized how boring my life was without Brent around.

I woke up in the morning very enthusiastic about returning to my students. After getting ready, eating breakfast, and dealing with the dogs I headed for the high school. I spent the next 30 minutes catching up on paper work, checking in with the school secretary, and preparing for the school day. During my prep hour I worked on getting my classroom back into functioning order and was all ready for my first day back after a whole week of being off. Seeing my second hour class was INCREDIBLE! One of my students walked straight up to me and hugged me. She was so happy that I was back. I surprised the students with putting new books on their chairs and they were really excited to be moving on. We spend the entire class hour playing and actually accomplishing a lot. Third hour choir did not go as well but they ended up having to sing in front of their fellow classmates. For some of the students this was really embarrassing because it showed their peers that they have no idea what they were doing. 

I nibbled at lunch and then prepared for my freshman band. As these students came in and set up I knew I was in the home stretch for the day. In the middle of 4th hour my classroom lights went out. We had enough light to continue out lesson but there was no way we would be doing anything else after that. The students packed up their instrument and I headed down toward the office to see what was going on. The entire Pinon area was out of power. Between the 30 - 40 mile per hour winds, the rain, snow, and hail the electrical lines just could not hold up. After two hours of sitting in the dark the district sent home the students one hour early. As soon as they dismissed the students the power came back on. We are technically still suppose to stay till 4 PM but with being tired I decided to go home and work for awhile before Brent got home. 

As time passed I realized how boring my life was without Brent. Did I really lead this boring of a life before he appeared? I use to stay at work until 5:30 or 6 PM working, come home and eat dinner, watch a movie or two, and then go to bed around 9 PM. LAME!!! Without Brent around I found myself doing nothing and just staring into the great beyond. I went back to work for awhile only to find myself even more bored than before. I went home and watched a movie hoping to pass the time but it still did not work. Finally around 6:30 PM Brent called to tell me that he was in Flagstaff and would be heading my way, he should be home around 9:30 PM. This worked out great. As time passed and 9:30 approached there was still no Brent. He called me to tell me that the roads were to bad and that he was not going to be able to finish making the drive tonight, it was becoming a matter of safety. He made it to the Hopi Cultural Center and rented a room for the night. Brent is only about 30 miles from me but I will not see him for one more night. 

It is amazing how great you think your life really is, meet someone and spend every waking minute with them, and then when you spend time by yourself again you realize how much your life sucked. Life is boring without Brent, I even miss the random thoughts...

The Beginning of a New Week and a New Pamela

Last week, although it was the longest week of my life, was probably the best thing that could have happened to me.

After going to the hospital and later finding out that I basically blacked out on the way home, as Brent put it I was pathetic (thanks honey), I made a doctors appointment with an ENT on Thursday in Flagstaff. I was trying to sneak out of Pinon and let Brent stay at work since he had left so much to take care of me during the course of the week. I got one of my friends involved who went to his classroom and stole my keys. Well, if you can imagine that did not go so well and he called me in a panic. When he discovered that my plan was to drive myself to the doctors he freaked out and took off work. It defeated the whole purpose of me disappearing to feel better. I am not use to someone telling me 'no'. It is not that I always get what I want I just am use to taking care of myself and that includes going to the doctors. So Brent with me to the doctors where they diagnosed me with strep and tonsillitis, gave me new medication, and told me that I need to have my tonsils taken out. Later that night I decided that I was in no condition to sit in the car for two hours so we rented a hotel room and stayed in Flagstaff. I took the first dose of medication on Thursday night and woke up like nothing had ever happened. Over the next few days I kept getting better and better. I was able to actually eat for the first time in 72 hours without feeling sick to my stomach, did a little shopping, and went on a date with my man.

I was actually really scared when I was sick. The only think I could worry about was my job. I was afraid that they were going to let me go because I had missed so much work, but I one of the vice principals donated some time off to prevent me from getting a huge pay cut. Although I was physically ill I honestly needed the time to get my emotional health back into perspective. I realized that I am tired of making everyone else happy around me and not myself. I am tired of trying to impress my family and doing everything to just please them. If people really have a problem with me marrying Brent then say it to my face and not behind my back. Brent has done more for me than most of my family combined and I know that he will be there holding my hand through everything. I love him with all of my heart and nothing can change that. I also have learned that I need to start letting the small things go. I can't handle the stress and making decisions by myself is harder than anything else I could ever imagine. He will win a few, I will win a few more, but we will always talk things out and say 'I love you' at the end of the night.

I love you Brent!

The Mysterious Illness

On Monday February 28th I started feeling really tired and out of it. While Brent passed out on the couch I made dinner and watch family guy, trying to relax and hopefully de-stress myself. I decided to go to bed around 8:30 PM in hopes that a good nights sleep would do me well. I woke up at 2 AM in the morning and decided that sleeping in the bathroom was a better option. I fell asleep on the bathroom floor for a little while and then relocated to the couch. I was in and out of sleep for about 3 hours until it finally happened, I got sick.

I called off work on Tuesday, again, to get some rest. I had been unable to keep any fluids down, my body ached everywhere imaginable, and the idea of even moving made my ill. I stayed in bed most of the day and then decided that I was feeling well enough to take a shower. At the end of my shower I tilted my head a little to far back and there went the rest of my fluids. Brent came to check on me during lunch and as soon as he sat down I started crying, and in a weeping pathetic sound told him that I needed to go to the hospital. I will admit that when I get really sick I do one of two things. One, I want everyone to leave me alone or two, I turn into a helpless little child because I just quit. By this point I had just quit.

Brent drove me to the Tuba City Emergency room. We got there around 3:50 PM and I was in a bed by 4:30 PM, not to bad. They told me that they were going to pump me will 3 liters of fluids, draw some blood, get a chest x-ray, and run some tests. The doctor was leaning toward influenza or a kidney infection, both fit my symptoms perfectly. By 9:30 PM this was the diagnosis: when I came in my vitals were very low and I was severely dehydrated, the flu test came back negative, the kidney test came back negative, they ran a bunch of other tests which all came back negative, and the only thing that they found is that I had a high white blood cell count. They told me I was not allowed to go back to work for the entire week and to seek additional treatment if I wasn't feeling better in a couple of days. So, we filled the prescriptions and left.

Over night my fever came back and I had no desire to drink any fluids. I was still in bed when Brent came home from lunch. He basically forced me to get up and drink something because I was not doing well again. Later in the evening I began to suspect something. Besides an extremely sore stomach and being unable to eat my throat is killing me. It is really swollen and you can even tell from looking at my neck. The sides of my neck are all puffed out where my glands are. I looked up tonsillitis and read through some information. All of the symptoms and causes of tonsillitis are things that I have been dealing with over the past several weeks. I even looked at pictures and compared it to the back of my throat and they matched perfectly. I need to see an ENT. I asked Brent if I could drive myself on Friday and he told me no, he is worried about me driving if I am unable to turn my head. Ok, legitimate.

So that is were we stand, a sick Pam and a worried Brent. Hopefully once I get over whatever this then Brent will get better and we can stay better until after the wedding. That would be a miracle...