Snowboarding and Hospitals

Hey all,
A few weeks ago we had a fun snowboarding trip with some family. (My brother Sam and his wife Rachelle, Amy and me, my cousin Ethan. My cousin Ethan is the head of the ski school at Snowbird and he hooked us up. We got free rentals (I put a boot on the wrong foot like a doofus) and 2/1 all access passes. Ethan started everyone off on the beginner hill as a warm-up. Ethan lent a hand to the girls (and is very much so more patient with them than Sam or me lol)and they enjoyed that. Amy was getting the muscle memory of the sport coming back almost instantly, but still struggled to use her toeside to effectively carve, but she is becoming a great snowboarder!Rachelle is a beginner and did really good as well. After lunch, us boys hit the bigger slopes while the girls agreed to stay at the beginner hill. It was a cloudless day and we had fresh snow come in just a few days earlier. It was a bit icy, but overall perfect.

As some of you may have heard, I lost the group and decided to try the ski jumps in the terrain park, which didn't turn out so well. I know all you readers are thinking...wear a helmet...yeah...I learned my lesson ok? Here is what I remember though. I stopped and waited to see someone else to it as general rule of thumb. The kid going said, "Ok, watch me, the trick is you need some speed to master these jumps." He did them with precision like a graceful bird. I have done jumps like these hundreds of times, but not these particular ones. So I guess I got to thinking it was a piece of cake. All I remember is going off and I think doing kind of an awkward backflip that must have landed me on the lower left side of the back of my head. I was told I blacked out for 5 minutes, when I came to I saw the ski patrol all hovering over me. I must have babbled off info earlier than that because they seemed to know a certain amount already. That nice kid saw my wreck and he flagged them down for me and waited to see that I was taken care of. He asked me several times if I remembered the phrase red 12 and he kept laughing when I got it wrong saying red 28 or red 15. My cousin must have gotten them on the radio and came to see me pretty quick. He chuckled, got my snowboard from me, and took some photos exclaiming he had family blackmail for facebook, (which he still hasn't posted the pics yet) However there is a video of our day and footage of me going down on the stretcher.



Yeah, they put me in a dorky neck collar and a stretcher. My brother said he couldn't keep up with the flying ski patrol when they hauled me off down the mountain to the ambulance. I said to the guy, red 12, my memory all come flooding back. (A really weird feeling, I didn't even know where I was or that I had a wife there on the mountain). I was told I was babbling off concerns about our insurance coverage haha. He also asked me a TON of questions I don't seem to remember. Like my name, where I go to school, what I do for a living, who I was with that day, etc etc. I bet this guy never heard a patient say this, "Wow, I'm in an ambulance, like in the movies, I've never been in an ambulance before." He chuckled and said, "Well, its technically not an ambulance, its more a van." So, I guess I really am halfway there to a real ambulance, maybe I'll end up in one someday lol. Anyway, they took me into the resort medical facility and I saw Amy there fighting back tears of worry and my family all chuckling at the pictures Ethan was showing them. I guess you Erwin's are more sentimental than us Smith's haha. They did a series of memory tests about 3 times, I nailed them so they skipped the x-ray, then they looked over a chart about the symptoms of a concussion. They said it wasn't critical, I need to take some prescription strength Ibuprofin, and in 2 weeks I would be fine. Dearest Amy was there to hold my hand and drive us home.

It was then the following Tuesday that Amy went in for surgery. She has given me permission to say what it was. She had Endometriosis, if you are not familiar with it, here is a link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endometriosis

She had been a real trooper over the 8 months of this condition with me, which has been very hard on virgin newly weds. We are blessed that she has a job at Discover Bank that offers her a great Health Insurance package for us both. A lot of women, and especially the ones at work have told her, if doing "that" hurt as bad as she described, there wouldn't be any. I guess that is just how amazing my wife is. One lady at her work even made her a nice little card with a gift card to the bookstore for her.

We went in to Alta View Hospital at around 10:30 and ended up waiting until 3. They had some issues with 2 earlier patients that took longer than expected. Amy was huuunnn-grrrrrrry, she had fasted 24+ hours by this point. We would have been mad, but I had a laptop with movies so that passed the time. (I still wish they could have given us a discount or something on the surgery haha.) After the nurse, the anesthesiologist, and the doctor all came in to see her, they wheeled her off to surgery. Amy complained that the anesthetic was a bit painful, I think she has veins that like to hide haha. Amy seems to have bad luck with that, she tells me lots of stories where nurses try to stick her veins with a needle and fail. One nurse she said even moved the needle around in her skin and hit a nerve making her scream for another nurse. Nevertheless, they got her in, and got it done in less than an hour. They made incisions through her belly-button and just below it. In this operation they went through these holes with a fiber optic camera and a small lazer that cauterizes all the red inflames areas she has in there. The doctor showed me the pictures and explained the anatomy, what he typically sees, and kinda a color code as to the age of the inflamed areas. White the newest, Red a bit older, Brown longer, and Black is the oldest. She had quite a few red spots and a few brown.

I went ahead and got her prescription, stayed with her a bit until she could use the bathroom, then pulled the car around and got her home in bed. She was a bit woozy from the anesthetic and slept and slept. We had been abstinent for 2 weeks and she needed to avoid soaking in water. She saw the doctor this last Wednesday and he told her everything is healed and fine. This was GREAT news for me! We are both glad she is not in pain anymore and everything went fine. Friends and my mother provided dinner and company and it was very nice. Thank the lord above. :)

Life now has been busy still for us both. Amy has been back at work and I have been slaving on final projects for school and fitting in work. We have our date nights each weekend and oddly enjoy cleaning the house together. There hasn't been a time when I have taken the garbage bag out to the curb and Amy has already replaced the bag when I have gotten back. I love to grocery shop with Amy because she lets me get goodies. :P. Amy recently got a new laptop with some money we saved and she LOVES it!! We are also talking about getting a new car to replace her Malibu, but don't really have any concrete plans yet. We are hoping to buy my grandmother's Subaru Outback that she only put 17,000 miles on. That would be a really nice upgrade! But, we'll see what happens. We have happily been moved for 3 months here by our family workshop. Amy is still hunting for jobs and I am trucking away at school. We love all family that reads these and cares and loves for us.