A Missing Piece of My Heart

Abby
May 1996- June 9, 2011

I lost a piece of my heart. I had to let her go and put her to sleep today. I was stuck in Hawaii unable to be there with her. After 15 years I feel like I should have been there at the end. Abby was like a child to me and I know I was her person. I will never forget the way the sun would shine on you and your hair would light up like an angelic glow. I loved watching you in your beanie bag either bouncing and pouncing around or sleeping like a baby. You were my baby. I will miss your sense of adventure always getting yourself into a hole or even into trouble getting out of the yard or going on "extended" walks at the lake. Taking naps on the couch with me when I would come home from work. Your little toes hairs. Your fluff butt. The light in your beautiful brown eyes. My companion. Sitting up on your butt begging like you taught yourself to do. Howling and talking back to me. I miss you and it hurts. I don't want to forget all your little quirks. You will always be in my heart.

Majestic Eggs

I made some hard boiled eggs today to decorate and take to work. They were really easy when it came to coloring them since you just put a few drops of the color in bags and rolled the egg around in it. Much cleaner and quicker than dipping them. I haven't colored or decorated Easter eggs in years.

Eye Update

Well yesterday I again underwent surgery on my eye to try to obtain good vision. They finally had decided that my eye was done healing from the lasik surgery and I could undergo the PRK to try to fix the astigmatism it had given me in my right eye. This surgery is more painful and irritating than the last. It also doesn't have that immediate result that lasik has in regards to your sight so I won't know till it is done healing. This surgery does not involve lifting the flap in your eye. Instead they sweep aside surface cells and use the laser to resurface the eye. Then you wear a bandage contact over the area they burned off till cells come together and heal underneath it. They have basically been saying it is like having a rug burn on your eye. If you can imagine. They gave me Vidodin, but so far I have not had to use it. The first day was ok. Today has been more irritating. It feels like I have had mascara in my eye most of the day. I took some Tylenol to try to stave if off. I have either been able to distract myself and ignore it or maybe the Tylenol is helping a little. Well hopefully it doesn't hurt more than this and it only gets better. Especially since I am leaving for Phoenix, AZ to see Shane on Sunday. The doctor is coming into the clinic just for me on Sunday to remove my bandage contact before I go. I hope all goes well.

Baking with Love....

I did some more cupcakes, this time for Valentine's Day. I made them to bring to work since I am still sans a Valentine. These were just my idea for design I didn't have a book I was following this time. I liked melting the chocolate to make the hearts on top and will definitely be using this again to do other desserts and such in the future.

Dane Cook at the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena

Went to Dane Cook tonight with Josh S. and his friends Heather and Alexandria. It was fun. We had floor seats. They also had large screens located above each section. The stage was set in the center of the arena so the comedians walked around in a circle. There were three opening acts. Chris Army, Ben Glieb from Chelsey Lately, and Al (something). The show was funny. Unfortunately Spokane had some rude patrons who tried to charge the stage. One guy made it onstage and the other was actually stopped. Dane was none too happy with the Arena's security. Hopefully he will still want to come back to the city some other time. I didn't sneak in a camera, but my friend's little sister did so I have copied her pics from Facebook so I could have some memories for here. (Thanks, Emily M.) After went and had some food at The Max in Spokane Valley before heading home.

Thanksgiving cupcake

So I was overly ambitious this Thanksgiving and thought I could make 24 of these cupcakes. I made only the one. They were very complicated and had too many steps. I was just too busy with school, work, and being sick. Maybe next year if I feel like buying all the supplies over again.

Eye See with my one Eye......

So I had Lasik surgery on Monday, November 8th by Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute. I wasn't scared or nervous mostly excited. The experience in itself was not bad though not pleasant. I felt like I was rushed into the surgical room. They barely let me lay down and rearrange a blanket that I was using before they started working on my eyes. They started with the left eye. The part I was most nervous about was them placing the contraption that holds your eyelids open. That part wasn't too bad. It was when they were placing the microkeratome that cuts the flap on my eye that was very uncomfortable. He kept placing it and moving it and had to try a few times. The sound of the thing cutting my eye was also louder than I expected. They then placed the cutter on my right eye and cut it. This time it took less placement. After the right eye was cut the surgeon commented on the hinge and the two doctors said something I couldn't hear. They then used the laser to do the right eye after flipping back the flap. It was quick. Then they went back and flipped back the flap on the left eye and did the laser. When this was done they placed protective contacts in my eyes. I asked the surgeon "What about my hinge?". He said that nothing was wrong with it and that it was perfect. I was then basically rushed out of the surgery room since they had more people to do. My mom drove me home and from there it was drops, drops, and more eye drops on a schedule. My mom was there to make sure I got all my drops in as I was tired since I had done the surgery after having worked the night before.

The next day was the post-op. So here is the bad news. The left eye is great, but the right eye has an astigmatism due to the hinge on the flap and some epithelial cells that are sitting there. My eye is blurry. I can't see close or far with it. Very frustrating and upsetting. I just paid them $2800 for one good eye. So we scheduled another appointment for the Thursday.

A few days later on Thursday I went back in. After taking the various pictures of my eyes with some pretty interesting machines I was told that the cells were going away and that it was getting better. This was good. Make another appointment for Monday.

Monday came and I went yesterday for another appointment. More cells were gone and I was very slightly better. The good news is they can give me a contact as a crutch while the right eye heals and we wait to see if it corrects itself or we will have to do something else to fix it. The bad news is that it will take at the very least 2 months. Not the time frame I was looking forward to, but hopefully with this contact it will be easier to read and do homework again since having one good and one bad eye makes them fight each other. In fact I am typing this post with it looking blurry.

Finally today I had an appointment with my optometrist, Dr. Gruver. My fourth eye appointment in a week. He ordered me a contact with more strength. Of course, he also looked at my eyes. He dyed one yellow too. I looked like I got in a fight with a highlighter and it won. So at this point I am waiting on my contact to come in and waiting on my eye to hurry and heal. Hopefully it will heal into good vision and I won't have to do anything else. Just gonna have to wait and see.


It was real fun having everyone look at me funny when I went to Les Schwab to get some snow tires.