Eye

I'm going to share some personal photos here. I would normally hesitate to share these pictures of me looking a little not like Miss America :), but since it's all going to turn out in the end (keep your fingers crossed), I'm going to share because I know you'll be interested.


So, I've had four eye appointments in the last week. On the first day I had an impression taken. It hurt. They have this little funnel thing with holes in it. She puts that into my eye and injects this plaster stuff (the same stuff from the dental impressions you've all done) into my socket and inject it until the pressure builds enough so that the stuff goes through the holes. It really stings. Here is a picture of the tube that leads into the tunnel. Isn't it weird? Click on it. Make it big. That thing is sticking out of my eye! (And yes, Ibroke my nose when I was little when my dad rolled up an automatic car window while my head was hanging out. It hit me smack in the nose and it hasn't been straight since.)

Next she made a wax mold from the impressions. She slowly slowly slowly shaved/melted the wax down layer by layer until it was thin and the right size to fit my eye. Here is a picture of what she ended up with on day one. It's pretty weird looking, but just keep reading for weirder.

The next appointment was to find the center of the eye for placement of the iris (colored part). She did this by using a red wax to mark where the color would go and then attaching a little stick to it to mark the pupil. Pretty cool pictures, huh?

The next day I was supposed to pick up the final product, but it turns out this is the hardest fit and the hardest color she has ever done. In my life I have always tried to not take the easy route, and I hold others to that standard. Although I am quite pleased with the progress she has made so far, I am looking forward to the final product which will be ready (hopefully) on Friday. Carole has worked tirelessly to make my eye as good as humanly possible, and I cannot say how wonderful it is to have a medical professional actually really care about me. The last ocularist would have sent me home after a few hours with a second-rate eye.

Carole did let me take the eye she had made but rejected, and I wore it to Thanksgiving. Here is how it looks. (And if you want to remember how i looked pre-surgery, click here.


It looks a lot better than before, but we're still hoping to adjust the color, the eyelid, and how it lines up with my other eye. Apparently this eye is looking a little to the right of where it should. I have no doubt she'll get it. Either way, I finally feel like I can have hope in my life again, and that's a good thing. Ironically I'll get the final eye one year and one day after the initial surgery. It's been long enough. Oh, and for all of you wondering what this little lab looks like, here is where I spent most of last week:



And that's it. If you made it to the end of this post, here's a little spoiler: I'm coming up on my 100th post and that means that I must follow the trend of a couple of my friends and host a giveaway. If you comment on that post (and I'll make it clear that it is the 100th post) I'll have two fabulous prizes ready to give to two random winners. And since I have about 4 people who comment regularly, it's going to be a tough race! However, I do know that at least 40 people regularly read this blog, so maybe we'll get more than just 4 comments. It will certainly be exciting :)

Rise and Shout

One of the good things about living in Logan is getting in free to the BYU USU game. Here is a page of Taylor and Claire cheering their little hearts out. They've actually attended another game together. They are little peas in a pod when it comes to cheering for sports. It's cute to see how much she want to be like her daddy.

New Digital Scrapbook Site

I just found this new site and I'm so excited about it. I'm trying to gain digital converts, so I thought I'd share. It has tons of free downloads for all of your scrapbooking needs. Check it out! It really fits my style.

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/

Victory is Mine!

Ha! After 14 months of planning and preparation I finally got up the nerve to tell the Jehovah's Witnesses that I do NOT want them to come back! Yeah! I've wanted to say this since the first time they came. Today was the day. "No, thank you" I said. "We are very happy with our religion. We're very Christian." I said.

They were disappointed. I stood firm. "I'm sure there are other people who need you more than I do." They've come more often than my own visiting teachers. I felt a little bad, but stuck to it.

Taylor was so proud he took me to Cafe Sabor for lunch.

Farewell, JW's, until we move again.

Good and Bad News...

Good news first: Kyle is walking! Kyle started some serious attempts at walking on Friday, and he hasn't stopped yet. Everywhere he goes he just walks a bit (4-5 steps), falls, then continues crawling. He's very excited. He also learned THREE words on Saturday almost doubling his vocabulary: balloon, kitty, and pat-pat-pat. Oddly, balloon was also one of Claire's very first words too.

Bad news: My brother Jake and I planned a surprise birthday party for my mom's 50th birthday. My grandpa read the invitation to her over the phone when he had a question about the party, only realizing it was a surprise the second time he read it to her. Oh well, she didn't know when it was going to be, so that part was still a surprise.

Good news: My brother Dan and his wife, Meg, surprised everyone by flying in from Minnesota for the party. It was the best surprise ever! We got to spend Saturday evening and most of Sunday with them.

Bad news: Three weeks ago we were at a store and someone side-swiped our Escape and fled the scene. It didn't do much damage, but now the doors squeak when you open them, and the rubber siding stuff sticks when you open the doors.

And yesterday Taylor came home from work and parked behind our Escape on the street. Apparently someone felt the need to hit it from behind and didn't let us know. The bumper is all scraped and the back door is smashed. Lovely. Come on people! If you hit something, own up to it! The worst part is that I am perfectly capable to inflict damage on my own vehicle and have managed to not injure this one in two years (which may be a record for me, although I did get a parking ticket the other day...)

Me in Mosaic

I found this on my friend, Shannon's, blog and I thought it was fun to do.

Here's the deal... you answer the following 12 questions about yourself (my answers are in parentheses after each question):

1. What is your first name? (Jackie)

2. What is your favorite food? (BBQ)

3. What high school did you attend? (Lehi)

4. What is your favorite color? (green)

5. Who is your celebrity crush? (Dean Cain---I actually had that exact pin-up on my wall in high school)

6. Favorite drink? (Diet Coke with Lime---there, I've said it openly. I need it.)

7. Dream Vacation? (Mexican Resort)

8. Favorite dessert? (plain cheesecake)

9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (president)

10. What do you love most in life? (families are forever)

11. One word to describe you? (trying)

12. Your Flickr name? (jacherrin)**My Flickr name didn't give any results, so I used my last name.

Wanna play?: Type your answer to each of the above questions into Flickr's search. Using only the images that appear on the first page, choose your favorite and copy and paste each of the URL’s into the Mosaic Maker (3 columns, 4 rows)... Enjoy!

More it's a boy...

Here are a couple more ways Kyle and Claire are different. Claire has never put anything unapproved in the toilet. Never. Kyle has already dropped a crayon in and has made several other attempt to dunk bath toys in the toilet.

And just an hour ago while we were watching conference he was playing with Taylor's cell phone. I thought I heard someone answer the phone. Who did he call. 911 of course. Of all numbers to call our 11-month-old called 911. Claire hasn't managed to accomplish this in 3+ years of living.
I hung up as I grabbed the phone, so of course they called right back and we had to explain the situation.

He's a boy. We love him. Enough said.

The Up-side of things

It seems like I am always sweeping up Cheerios from our kitchen floor. The Up-side? It's mindless work, I never have to wonder if I've covered an area, if it's Cheerio-free, it's been swept---if not, it hasn't.

I only have one eye. The Up-side? I only have to buy 12 contacts a year---not 24. What a savings!

Kyle gets up around 5am every morning. The Up-side? I love the feeling that I get when I crawl into bed. I get to do that at least TWICE a day!

How I really look one week later

If you look through my blog you'll quickly notice that there are no pictures of me. My "small" surgery in December that was suppose to come along with a long six week recovery. I agonized over how I would make it through. Then those six weeks became eleven weeks, and I cried for days. Eleven weeks passed, and then the doctors let me know that it would really be close to a year and multiple surgeries. I am now 9 1/2 months into that long year and two surgeries down. I have made a point to stay out of pictures as much as possible. However, to document the progress that has been made, and really just to show off my really cool bruise, I am going to post a picture of what has been done to me.

The pictures are kind of gross, so don't look if you're not prepared. I wanted to show the HUGE improvement that has been made even with how funny I do look right now. Hopefully everyone who donated to my surgery can feel like they've made a good decision. Once I get the new eye in October I'll definitely be sharing more (and hopefully better) pictures.

I want to preface it by saying that it really doesn't hurt anymore. Well, the pretend pretend eye that is jammed in there does hurt. It has some rough edges. Hopefully the swelling will be gone soon so that we can put a "realer" eye in there. I included a picture of me from Miss America. You can see that it wasn't perfect, but it looked pretty good. (I also chose one from Miss America because the whole "beauty pageant winner" thing seems a little ironic. And those earrings are always worth a second look---I love them!)

The next picture literally makes my stomach sick when I see it, but I'm okay to share it because I know I don't look like that anymore. It was taken on Easter, so four months after the first surgery. This is how I have looked since December. When you see it you'll see why I've been complaining so much (and why I've ignored so many of you in your requests to meet up with you for lunch/dinner when we're in town). Seeing it also really makes me irritated when I think of all the times people (I'm sure who meant well) say that they can't see the difference. Um, okay...

The next picture is how I look today. And I put makeup on one eye and did a little smile because I still have a small amount of self-respect. Though looking at it now I should have added some lipgloss:)

So here it is. Click on the picture and make it bigger to see the cool colors in my bruise.

You can see that the creases are a similar shape and that it is much less hollow. If the eye in there wasn't in that ridiculous position it would be fine. I really feel bad it's not closer to Halloween, I could win contests.

One day I'm going to blog on the emotional toll this has taken on me, and the lessons that we think we were meant to learn from all of it. But for now, at least it's getting better.

I will survive...

I made it through the surgery. I write this while I'm on heavy doses of percocet, so please excuse the mistakes that I'm sure will be abundant. My surgery started around 2:00 yesterday, and we made it home around 7 or so. I actually fee great. Both my side (from the fat transplant) and eye hurt, but are certainly manageable. The biggest problem was that sometime during the surgery something got into my left eye which is causing a significant amount of pain. Apparently they can't tape the non-operated eye closed during this surgery because they need to compare my eyes in a natural state for the fat fill. About 5 minutes into waking in recovery I noticed the stinging which got significantly worse as time passed. When I was pregnant with Claire I got herpes in my cornea along with blisters that would pop on the surface of the cornea. This pain was even worse than the herpes which is suppose to be the worst pain you can experience.

They gave me two doses of morphine and it made no difference. Taylor and my mom got the job of irrigating my eye for what seemed like an hour while nurses tried to reach my doctor who was still in surgery. We were a little worried about the fact that the pain wouldn't go away as it is my only seeing eye. Taylor's grandparents live about three blocks from the surgical center, so they stopped by. Grandpa came into the recover to assist in a blessing, though he had to wait several minutes. From the moment he sat down I started feeling progressively better. They gave me a blessing, and the pain lessened quite a bit. I'm so grateful for the priesthood and the power that it has. I'm also grateful for Grandpa, it certainly seems his prayers have a lot of persuasion power.

So, the pain in my seeing eye is subsiding and only comes in waves now. I did pretty well during the night, and now I'm just happily recovering and watching the Olympics---my favorite!