Rainy Days...

I absolutely LOVE the smell of rain. It's so refreshing and I almost feel cleansed after a rainstorm. Everything seems to be revived and the colors are more intense. I love trying to find the rainbow after the storm. It reminds me that even though I may have trials in my life brewing over my head like a rainstorm, I know that if I work hard and try my best to overcome that trial, I'll be able to see the rainbow after. Like the quote says, "Its not about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning how to dance in the rain." So let loose and DANCE IN THE RAIN!!!

                                                           Do you see the Rainbow?

Grandma, Girls Camp, and...oh yeah Another Surgery

I need to update everybody on my blog of what has been happening the last few weeks. My Grandma Keppner had not been doing too good since she had some tests done in Salt Lake. She was so strong throughout the whole process though. When she had the tests done, she found out that she had Liver Cancer. Her response to the doctor was, "Well, I've had 87 great years." She was the kindest person that I know. She did so much for others that it was just a part of her life. I remember when I was little and I went over there she would have a little cookie for me and she feed cats that wandered around her neighborhood with leftover drippings from the tuna cans and I even remember she had some cat food that she fed them with even though she didn't own the cats personally. I also remember many many hours spending with her doing scrap booking. That was one of her favorite things to do and it was fun to learn what memories were captured in the pictures. She was a wonderful example to me and I will truly miss her. Before she passed away, she did get to spend her 69th wedding Anniversary with Grandpa and that is really special. She died only 16 days after she found out that she had liver cancer but we think it was a blessing because now she doesn't have to suffer through the horrible pain that she was in. Throughout her life she loved flowers. I don't think she had a specific kind of flower. So for her Funeral my mom my sister and I went to the flower shop to pick out what we wanted for grandma's casket spray that goes on top of her casket. I think we chose a really good combination and it really did remind us all of Grandma. They even let us put some of the flowers from my mom's garden to put in the arrangement. It was so nice. When a family member passes away, it really gets you thinking differently.I know that I will be able to see her again and be able to hug her and talk to her and that gives me alot of comfort. I'm really grateful and blessed that I had such a wonderful influence in my life that has strengthened me. I realize that I have alot of great influences in my life and I love ALL of them, they are all special. So, Thanks Grandma Keppner, I love you LOTS and LOTS!!!! See you soon...
here are some pictures of the funeral...

 Paul Bearers

 The purple flowers were out of my mom's gardaen

Grandma's Casket represented her so much

Grandma's burial plot

My Grandma's funeral was on Wednesday, June, 22, 2011. Earlier that morning, before the funeral, the rest of the girls loaded up to go to Girls Camp at Island Park Scout Camp. My niece Rebecca and I wanted to go to the funeral so we decided to ride up with a leader that was coming up later on that night. Girls camp is lots of fun and I really didn't want to miss the first part of it but, in thins situation family was more important and I would have been really upset if I missed grandma's funeral. This year was officially my last year at Girls Camp(as a Young Women) It was a great last year! I had lots of fun. I got the opportunity to take the swim test at the lake and swim, Go on a gorgeous hike, do the low cope course which helped with teamwork skills and the last activity for the low cope was the Trust Fall. It was awesome. You had to put alot of trust in people to fall from a platform and trust that they would catch you. I think it was an awesome experience when I did it and I'm glad I did. We also went to the Riffle Range and Archery range to shoot some targets. I love shooting so it was alot of fun. After that we were able to go Repelling. I loved the repelling wall. I went repelling before and thought it was lots of fun and I thought it was fun this time too. Some of the leaders and girls Rock climbed up one side and Repelled down the other. I just decided to take the easy way and climb the stairs. Lame, I know but I still had fun. :) Throughout the whole Girls Camp we learned about different things that we can do to strengthen ourselves and better ourselves. Our camp theme this year was B.O.O.T camp- Building. On. Our. Testimonies. I thought the theme was amazing!! I loved it. It was great to learn the different ways that we can strengthen our testimonies and push through all of the things that Satan throws at us. For me this year at Girls camp went by so fast but I had a blast with everything that we did. There is no other way of putting it. There were great Leaders up there, great girls, and everyone was such an amazing influence and example to me. I had a Blast!!

 Before I left

 on the hike

 there were tons of pelicans on our hike

Devotional

 

And finally, My update about this past week. On Sunday, I wasn't feeling my very best but by Monday I was having severe stomach pains so my mom took me to my doctor at Upper valley.  They sent me home with some nausea medicine and other meds. He told me to be on a liquid diet and sent me home. They didn't know what was wrong. On Tuesday the pain got Increasingly worse. It felt like I had a huge cramp throughout my whole stomach that wouldn't let go. It was so bad that I could hardly move. My mom had to work so I called my sister Deneece and she came over to help me. We decided to get my brother-in-law Joshua and my dad to give me a priesthood blessing. That helped too.After the blessing I went to my doctor again. They did some more tests to see if they could find anything like a kidney stone or twisted intestine or a few other things. All the tests came out negative. They put me on an IV to get me rehydated. (I tried to keep myself hydrated but it didn't want to stay in my stomach and I ended up throwing it up).I must have looked horrible because when The IV was done, the doctor came back in and said hat I was looking a whole lot better and i had a lot of color back. I was feeling a whole lot better too. He sent me home to see if that helped and gave me another nausea prescription.
On Wednesday morning I woke up and I couldn't hardly get out of bed. I called my mom to come to my room and asked her if she would take me to the doctor. It was around 4 in the morning so they were not open yet.We debated about going to the ER but decided not to because It would take hours and they would have to start all the research over to try and figure out what I had and on top of that I would still be in the pain that I was feeling right now. So I had to wait until 8 when the office opened. I tried to sleep on the couch in the front room. To say the least I didn't get enough sleep.
It was finally 8 and my mom and me got to my doctors at Upper Valley family medical. She gets me checked in and then we go to the back to talk with the doctor. Dr. Barbo helped me and talked to me Monday and Tuesday and then on Wednesday Dr. Adams came in. They did their regular blood test, the IV was still in me so they decided to hook me up and get more fluids in me. They discussed getting me in for a CT scan and were trying to figure out when we could arrange that. DR. Adams said that if the CT didn't show anything than we would just go back and see what else we could find out. He got ahold of the doctor who does the CT scan and set up the appointment the earliest that they could do it which was at 11:30am. So I waited at Upper valley, had the IV hooked up and drank the Awful fluid that you have to take before you go to the CT scan. The drink helps the machine see the organs better in the CT scan so I had to do that. At about 11 we loaded up in the car to go to Madison Memorial Hospital to get the CT scan. Long story short my Appendix showed up really good on the machine so they asked the radiologist to come see it and he said that it was Appendicitis. They  put me in the emergency section of the hospital until they could contact the surgeon that was going to take my appendix out. The nurse there was really nice, I liked him. He got me all prepped for the surgery and made me feel comfortable. The ironic thing about the surgery is that the surgeon on call was the one who did my gallbladder surgery almost 2 years ago, Dr. Coray.  So they put me to sleep so that I could go to surgery and that was that. When I woke up I was in my room upstairs. After the surgery the doctor told my mom that when they touched my appendix, it ruptured but it was contained enough that they were able to clean it up really good. It would have been a different story if it had ruptured before the surgery. It was really close to doing that so I'm really lucky. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to go to Girls camp and enjoy that time because it was only a week before all this happened and I would have had to wait at Least an hour  to get out of the mountains and those bumpy roads would not have helped at all. I could hardly handle the ones in Rigby. I feel so blessed. Recovery is still in progress right now but it's getting better and I'm beginning to feel more and more like myself each day and building that strength up again.