Fireworks! Emma Study Abroad; Sarah Another Half Marathon; Abe's Heart Scare

The 3rd of July North Salt Lake City fireworks were on a Thursday this year. That is the day Glen and I serve as weekly temple ordinance workers until 6 p.m. 

Klarissa's family was in town and were soon going to be enjoying a week at Aspen Grove together. We invited the Jackson family to join the Thomas family in our annual cook-out and fireworks show. 

Since Glen and I were unable to be the chefs for the evening, Abe stepped up and got all the food prepped and cooked for that big crowd of people. 

It was wonderful walking into our home after the temple and having a delicious meal all ready for us to eat.

Rebecca, Ben and Sarah, including Natalie and her friend Aubrey, helped haul up blankets and chairs early to the golf course, so we had a big space in a great spot for us to all congregate. Rebecca brought glow sticks which the grandchildren loved lighting and wearing when it got dark. 

Jan and Bill hosted a July birthday dinner party. As always, the food was yummy, and we all enjoyed visiting with each other.

Grant and Diane Stewart were unable to be with us that evening and we missed them.

Since Bill has graced all of us with a visit on our birthdays playing his trumpet while Jan sings Happy Birthday, Glen thought it was time for a reciprocation since Bill's birthday is on July 4th. 

We also had two other July birthdays, Bruno and Debi, so Glen played his accordion, and we all sang the birthday song three times. 

Emma is having an adventure in her summer abroad studies. Laurie accompanied her to Barcelona and they took a cruise together and then flew to Germany where Laurie left Emma to join her fellow classmates. 

The Excell family had a reunion, and I am including some of the photos Sarah posted because she designed their family reunion t-shirts (in collaboration with Jeff's mother), and they turned out so cute. Sarah said everyone really embraced the red bandanas and wore them everywhere.

Abe's family enjoyed their week with the Jackson family at Aspen Grove. Couldn't help but have a little bit of envy that they were there all week because we have loved going there two other years with our family. It is so beautiful and such a great week of fun for the whole family.

Abe and Klarissa were sharp shooters, with Klarissa earning the white feather award.

Magnus lost another tooth at Aspen Grove.

Aspen Grove always provides photo opportunities for each family on Sunday after their open-air sacrament meeting. 

After Mom feeling so poorly and being in so much pain and having draining tubes coming out of her, she is finally feeling so much better and can enjoy more freely doing the things she likes to do--one of which is going out to eat.

Sarah has been meeting her goal of running a half marathon every month. Good for her! 

After their week at Aspen Grove, Abe and Klarissa were craving sushi. They left Magnus and Monty with us and took Newland and Wynne for a night out. After their dinner, they went to a late-night movie. 

The next morning, Sunday, Abe was feeling very awful. He was convinced it was from eating sushi with wasabi so late at night and then eating candy and soda pop and reclining at the movie. He felt like he had a bad case of heartburn and had been popping Tums, which wasn't helping at all. 

He had decided the night before that he did not want to go to Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday morning. Klarissa was taking Newland and Wynne and invited me to go with them.

Off we went to join Klarissa's sister's family enjoying very much the pre and post special things they did along with the regular 30-minute broadcast celebrating their 5,000th episode. It was so enjoyable, and I was so glad I went with them. 

The plan that morning had been for Abe and Glen to take Magnus and Monty to church with them.

When we got home from the conference center, Glen had taken the two boys to church, and Abe was on the couch still feeling horrible. He had pressure in his chest and was having a hard time breathing. He kept thinking it was acid reflux. He consented to taking one of Glen's antacid pills.

He went upstairs to rest and when he came down later in the afternoon when the other family members had arrived for our family dinner, he did not feel like eating and was still struggling a lot trying to take a deep breath.

Everyone was taking turns taking their blood pressure and checking their pulse and oxygen. When we saw Abe's pulse was 126 BPM while resting, we knew he needed to get some medical help. He did have a lot of the symptoms of a heart attack.

Glen took him to the University of Utah Hospital where they took him right back.

Glen said Abe's EKG was causing everyone anxiety. They said he had the tombstone rhythm. Sounds ominous...!! Normal EKG shows horizontal squiggles and then a quick up and down. The tombstone rhythm shows up, an arch, and then back down. 

Google says, "a tombstone EKG is a critical indicator of severe myocardial infarction requiring immediate medical attention." He was immediately hooked up to a defibrillator. 

Glen said at one point there were 18 people in the room working on Abe. He had lots of blood work done during his two-day hospital stay. Heart attack was ruled out. The sushi and wasabi were ruled out as cause of the problem as well. He kept repeating his wasabi-causing-heartburn theory to everyone working on him. 

He had an echocardiogram and was diagnosed with pericarditis with effusion, which is inflammation and fluid around his heart. 

On Monday morning he sent this text to the family reporting about his night in the hospital.

Meanwhile, Abe and Klarissa were supposed to be taking their family with Klarissa's sister Jen's family to Yellowstone that Monday. 

After visiting Abe in the hospital Sunday evening, and knowing Abe would definitely not be able to go, and would need lots of rest for the next several weeks, Klarissa left him in our care and went to Yellowstone as planned.

It turned out to be a good plan because Abe was able to rest while his family was busy doing fun things, but they were missing him a lot.

This is the texting going on Tuesday morning hoping good news would be coming our way after Abe spent two nights in the hospital. His blood tests showed elevated liver and kidney function.

Abe got released Tuesday afternoon and was more than anxious to get out of the hospital. He did not get much sleep due to all the interruptions. Look at his arms with all the bruising and needle poke marks.

Abe was experiencing a lot of discomfort and found it very difficult to find a comfortable position to sleep. Hence, the sleeplessness continued once he got home from the hospital. He was also having cycles of sweating and then freezing, but with never having a fever. 

I must say Abe had been eating and continues to eat very healthy meals. He needed to take food with the Cochicine and the mega doses of Ibuprofen he was prescribed. Each time he checked his oxygen and heart rate, we were all hoping for a drastic reduction in heart rate.

The whole family was very anxious about whether Abe would be able to make it to Bear Lake for our Thomas family reunion. He was told to rest for three weeks. He will be on medication for three months.

Any exertion would do him in. Going up stairs was very difficult with his rapid heart rate. It was sad watching our usually vivacious, energetic son moving around so gingerly and not being able to do much at all and being so extremely fatigued all the time.

In the evenings, Glen would drive Abe up to Bountiful Boulevard so he could walk for a while to try and build up some strength again.

One day, in the midst of the first week of the health crisis, we had been invited to be the guest speakers as part of a girls' camp.

Our missionary, and one of our assistants, Jacob Burbank and his wife Amy had asked if their group could stop at our church as one of their stops in their temple-hopping girls' camp trip. They were visiting various temples to do baptisms for the dead and wanted our church to be a fireside/lunch/craft stop for the girls before they moved on to their next temple.

We were asked to talk about patriarchal blessings and also Glen was asked to share a little about his experience as a sealer in the temple.

They were a wonderful group of people, and we enjoyed our association with them. They had some great questions about patriarchal blessings and with what we shared, we felt like it had been a positive experience for all of them.

Klarissa had tickets to see The Wizard of Oz at Sundance and invited me to go in Abe's place. Since it was in the mountains and there was walking up steep slopes involved, it was definitely a good thing Abe didn't go.

I was sure glad I had taken my coat and blankets to sit on. It gets pretty cold on the mountain at night.

Jacob's family had flown in from Omaha in preparation for the reunion. They were staying at Sarah's home. They decided they would rather go to church with us in the mid-morning rather than go to Sarah's early church. 

Sarah offered to host our Sunday family dinner. That was so nice of her and Jeff. 

I love being in their home and the backyard dining and trampoline were used as well.

Abe said he would go if he could eat outside (to avoid germs as he didn't want to get a respiratory illness on top of this heart illness), and have the adults gather there to eat and visit with him. His food got dished up first as we tried to help him avoid germs.

When Abe made his grand entrance, he said, "Well, what can I do to help? Keep in mind I am breathless from walking from the car to the house, and I can't lift anything." 

We had all been so very worried about him all week and it was wonderful to have him in our midst. 

He said he felt like he could make the trip to Bear Lake and that made us all very happy!! He felt like he could sit around that house and at least be able to visit with everyone. Hurrah!! Bear Lake here we come!!!