Hurdles

Brooklin did great running the 100m and 300m hurdles this year.  These are from a meet at Mililani HS on April 9, 2011.

I did not get a picture of this happening...because all I wanted to do was jump over the side of the bleachers and help her up and hug her...but she tripped over the last hurdle on the 300m and scraped up her knees pretty good.  Her coach used her as an example of what not to do when you trip on a hurdle.  You are supposed to roll, and she just went splat right on the track.  She did get right back up and finished 3rd in her heat though!

These are just blisters from her shoes. 

Journal Jar #8

How many scars do you have and how did you get them?

I can think of five scars.  I'll start at the top and work my way down.

1. I have a scar in my right eyebrow.  When I was in elementary school (I can't remember how old I was) my parents took all of us to the Piercy's house for game night.  The Piercy's had a son that was close to my age named Perry...Perry Piercy.  They had other kids too, but I don't remember their names...wait, I think one of them's name was Noel.  Anyway, we were being kids...making a huge mess, jumping on things, yelling, that type of playing and things got out of control.  Perry picked up a chalkboard that was shaped like a black cat (and probably 2 ft. tall and a foot wide) and threw it like a frisbee across the room...and it hit me right on my right brow bone and started bleeding like crazy!  Things were crazy for a minute while the appropriate actions were taken...but after getting cleaned up and having a washcloth filled with ice for the bump, I think we watched Lady and the Tramp and had "quiet time" while the parents finished their game.  And Perry, if you ever google your name and find this post...don't worry, it's all good and you are forgiven. =)

2. I also have a scar right on the outside corner of my right eye...not even a half inch from the one in my eyebrow!  I got this scar much earlier.  I really don't remember much about this one, but of the eight kids in my family...there was only me and my brother Micah around, which would have put me under the age of 4.  (Cody was born two weeks before my fourth birthday).  I was sitting on the floor near a coffee table, and Micah was behind me....and he may have been crawling then...but anyway, he shoved me into the corner of the coffee table and cut my eye open.  I remember laying on a table with a big light above it, but the doctors wouldn't put stitches in it since it was too close to my eye.  My mom remembers more about that part...maybe...lol.  I don't remember if I had a patch or some kind of bandage or anything, but I still have a scar from the coffee table near my right eye.

3. I have a scar along the outside edge of  my right index finger.  We were living in Kodiak and were days away from moving to Washington DC.  We invited our neighbors, the Mumfords, over for dinner...halibut I think, we were trying to get rid of it since we couldn't take it with us.  Our house in Kodiak didn't have a dishwasher so we had to wash everything by hand.  I was washing a tall, clear glass...and the glass cracked and sliced from the middle of my right index finger down to my knuckle as I was pushing the washcloth into the glass to clean it.  No stitches...it wasn't very deep, but it did leave a mark!

4. I have a tiny cluster of scars on my right shin.  When I was 13 or 14 my mom was driving me through the neighborhood to a babysitting job.  I was going to babysitting my brother's friend Cody Holford (aka "Dope").  We approached an unmarked intersection and slowly proceeded through...since we had the right-of-way.  The truck on our left did not yield and smashed into the front of our car going about 30 miles an hour.  I had my legs crossed and my right shin ran into something in the center console area and I bumped my head.  After the accident, the guy got out and told the police that he was super tired and didn't know if he was very awake.  I think I got $100 for "pain and suffering" or something like that.

5. I have a scar on the top of my left big toe from having a bunionectomy.  I just wrote about that last week, so I don't need to do it again. =)

Journal Jar #7

Have you ever had any operations?  What kind?

I know of three.  One was very minor...the other two were fairly involved, but all of them were out-patient procedures.

When I was in 7th or 8th grade, I had a frenectomy of my lower labial frenum.   (hahaha!  I typed "What is that thing that attaches your lip to your gums" into Google...I totally had to look up what it was called, and here is what that means).

The Labial Frenum is a little tag of tissue in the center of the upper and the lower lip that attaches the lip to the gums.  It too is not especially useful, and sometimes causes orthodontic or periodontal problems if the attachment on the gums is too close to the teeth.  If it becomes a problem, we usually simply cut it .  This is most often done on children if the attachment of the frenum is too "high" and causes a diastema (space) between the adult teeth.  The procedure is called a "frenectomy".  An interesting thing to note is that a glancing blow to the face will generally rip this structure, and a ripped labial frenum, in combination with other "recurrent" bodily injuries is considered to be a legal indication of child abuse.  (http://www.doctorspiller.com/oral%20anatomy.htm)

My lower frenum was too high, causing my gums to recede from my bottom teeth, so the dentist (?) clipped it and then cut out a small piece of my gums from the back of my mouth and sewed it over the clipped area.  I had a few stitches in my mouth that they covered with what looked like silly putty (that hardened after it was applied) to keep the area clean while it healed.  I remember that some of the silly putty stuff came off while I was playing my saxophone in band class one day...lol.  Today, you can still kind of see that I have a slight discoloration of my gums right under my two front bottom teeth.

The second operation I had was a bunionectomy on my left foot.  I was 19 years old (and had JUST met Darwin).  I was about to be booted-off my parent's insurance (since I wasn't in school and was over 18) so I had a choice to have my wisdom teeth removed or my bunion fixed.  I was to the point of wearing isotoner slippers to work (JCPenney) because all of my regular dress shoes were too painful, so I kept my wisdom teeth and went in to have my ugly/painful toe fixed.

I remember starting to count backwards from 100... and then waking up on the operating table with my arms taped to my chest!  I could see the doctors still working on my foot, so I was worried that the pain blockers were wearing off.  They weren't...I couldn't feel anything.  I was just flopping around too much for them to keep me totally "under" for the entire operation.  They tried just taping my arms down so I would quit flailing around, but decided to just reduce whatever medicine that knocked me out, so I would settle down!  hahaha!  They broke my big toe knuckle, shaved off part of it with a file, and then used two screws to hold it in place.  While they had me out, they also removed a huge cluster of planter warts from the bottom of my big toe as well.  (I told you it was ugly!) 

It took several weeks for my foot to heal.  I had to walk around with one of those lovely blue velcro shoes for quite awhile...which remember, I was 19 and still pretty worried about how I looked...so it was amazing to me that my husband still asked me to marry him...hahaha!  I lost some of my range of motion with the surgery and also the ability to drive a stick shift car for more than a few stoplights.  (it gets pretty sore if I hold down the clutch for very long).

My final surgery was when I got my wisdom teeth removed at the age of 33!  I would not recommend waiting this long to get them removed.  Not fun!  I think I blogged about this experience... let me check...  I did!  You can read about it here...4 less teeth for me

 Here are some pictures not included in that blog post.

a before shot

These are from two days later...

 

4 less teeth for me

Well, my wisdom teeth are gone,and I am miserable. My kids have really taken care of me though, and I couldn't have done anything without my friend Elena's help. She drove me to the appointment, picked me up, took the required silly after op. pictures, picked up my medication, and then got my kids from school. She also offered to take them to school in the morning. She is a dear friend, and I am so grateful for all her help. Darwin was planning on being my nurse, but the Coast Guard decided to send him to Oahu last minute, so she was able to step in and do what she could. Darwin was able to give me a priesthood blessing last night, so that all would go well...which it did.

This is a picture I took of myself this morning just before leaving. I wore my glasses, so I wouldn't have to deal with my contacts sticking to my eyeballs while I was out.

Here are two of the after pictures. I think I was still a little out of it...hehehe.

I'm headed off to bed now with a percoset, and hopefully I can just sleep this time, and not throw it up like the last one I took.

Caleb's party

Here are some pictures from Caleb's party on Friday night. It was a little crazy with seven extra boys in the house, but Caleb had fun, so the party was a success.

Jacob, Caleb, Paul, Jordan, Alex

Isaiah, Ian, Ezekiel, & Kekoa

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This would be the bribe/reward for smiling in the first picture

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Caleb's cake. It is R2-D2, but it didn't turn out all tha great.

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Caleb blowing out the candles.

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At one point during the movie, Caleb and his friend both jumped up to tell each other something cool about the part they just saw, and banged heads in the process. The other boy has braces, and he got Caleb right above the eye. Since it was on his head, it bled a lot, but we were able to get away with just a bandaid.

We told Caleb that this is what would happen to his lips if he ever kissed a girl with braces....he seemed pretty concerned, so I don't think he will kiss any girls with braces when he is older.....hehehe!

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A close up of the braces bite.