Traumatic weekend

Traumatic Part 1:

The weekend is Memorial weekend and Al went and got a haircut. The hair cut accentuated some thinning so we discussed shaving it off. So here is the before....



And AFTER:



I think it is awesome! He was a little unsure about it with comments (as we were shaving it) like..."What did you make me do???" and "There's no turning back now!!"

Al was a little self conscious about it and of course we had to show it off at a family dinner at his sister Shana's house on Sunday. Her son, Garrett, had a birthday and we were going to do a birthday dinner at her house in Springville.

Traumatic Part 2:

Now Shana and Mike have been holding a frameless mirror in their dining room for over 2 years. They offered it to us and we told them we would take it off their hands. However, each time we are at their house, we forget to take it with us. As we were getting ready to leave, Shana says, "Hey are you guys gonna take that mirror?" We measured the back of the car and sure enough it would fit. Al picked up the mirror and was hauling out to the car when one of the corners of the mirror nicked the concrete stair.

In slow motion, I saw the mirror ripple and shatter over his head. Al jumped out the way but he wasn't quick enough. One of the glass shards hit his right wrist and slashed down to the bone. So we wrapped him up in dish towels and drove to the nearest ER, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center (UVRMC).

They triaged him quickly, wrapped his wrist in a compression dressing, and then the waiting began. We entered the ER around 7PM and we were not taken back to a room until almost 10PM. He got an XRAY to make sure no glass shards were still in his wrist. Then the doctor came into evaluate his wrist. He found that one tendon had been cut. He did not hunt further because he already knew Alan needed surgery.

Unfortunately, by the time we saw the doctor, it was close to midnight and the hand surgeon was already out of the hospital. He set us up with to see a hand surgeon on the following Tuesday (Monday being the holiday). We left the hospital with a crude splint and ice packs. I took pictures of the gash on my phone but somehow they disappeared. So no bloody pictures here...sorry. I'm really ticked about it.

This blew his Monday plans...putting the boat back together again. Over the winter, Al had the boat reupholstered and all the parts needed to be placed back in the boat. That didn't happen.

He saw the hand surgeon on Tuesday which was a wasted visit. The surgeon just did a "pre-op" visit. Total waste. He had surgery on Thursday. When the hand surgeon got in there he found that all three tendons and a nerve had been severed by the glass shard. He had to make another incision higher up on his arm to retrieve the tendons that had "snapped" back up into his arm.

He hand and the first portion of his forearm were immobilized for the first 2 weeks following surgery. Even after that his movement was really limited. It's just been in the last 2 weeks that he has being moving it more and using it on a regular basis.

Play dead

My Dad sent me this clip from the Dave Letterman show. I thought it was way funny and had to share.

Oh the Springs of Country Woods...

My sister emailed me a couple weeks ago asking me: "hey isn't this the complex where you used to live??" Indeed it was.

I don't think anyone used to believe me that my roommate and I lived in the ghetto. One of our downstairs neighbors grew, smoked, and sold pot out of their apartment. The smell would come up through the laundry room and all of our clothes smelled like pot. The next group of people to live there were a domestic violence family. We had the wife pounding on our door many times to let her in b/c her husband was beating her. Her daughter would climb up the deck and come in the apartment. Finally, one time my family came to visit me. Once Mom and Dad got inside the apartment, my Dad asked me if I knew there was a car on fire in our parking lot. Lovely.

See part of the article posted below:

Suspect fatally shot during Midvale home invasion

MIDVALE -- There was a terrifying wake up call for neighbors in a Midvale apartment complex as a home invasion robbery turned deadly.

Four people were inside the apartment Tuesday morning when there was a knock at the door. They answered it, and

that's when the ordeal began. When it was all over one suspect was dead, shot by one of the residents in the apartment.

Police have been able to identify the man shot and killed during the home invasion at the Spring of Country Woods Apartment complex at 6995 S. 1030 East. They say the Metro Gang Unit was able to identify him through the tattoos on his body. They are waiting to release his name pending family notification.

Police say he had been affiliated with gangs in the past, but whether this was gang relates is still under investigation.

Race for the Cure 2009

So it has become an annual tradition to run in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. There are many people at work who have been affected by breast cancer.

I started to run when Sharon (nurse at work) was diagnosed. Back then we were team Sharona! Here is a picture at Sharon's house after running my first year (left to right: Shelly, Me, Tami)


Then my friend Shelly (red head in picture above) was diagnosed with Liver Cancer and she passed away. I know the race is mainly for breast cancer, but Shelly is one of my driving forces to run each year.

Since then, many other women I know have been diagnosed with breast cancer...including Grandma V. So in honor of all these women, I drag my bootie out of bed to run.

Tami and I at this years' Race for the Cure.