Glen's brother David passed away after having a stroke a few months ago.
After the funeral, Glen treated the family to dinner at Chuck-a-Rama. Of the ten siblings, only these four are remaining: JoAnn, Barbara, Glen, and Maurine.
JoAnn's daughter Cheryl and JoAnn, Rich and Barbara, David's wife Connie, Glen and me, and Maurine and Ray.
When schools were closed for the holidays, Madison came over on two of our tending days to help with babysitting her cousins Kade, Levi, and Maverick. The older boys brought a couple of their new Christmas toys to play with that day.
Maverick liked the snowmen decorations I had set out for January decor.
Glen had made Madison an egg sandwich for breakfast when she was here and her mother reported she wanted one the next morning. Look at those beautiful nails she did with her home manicure kit she got for Christmas.
Right after the new year, Brooke got her belongings all packed up so she could go off to college. She left her room bare for Madison to move into. Caroline will have the big bedroom in the basement all to herself.
Off they went to Provo to get Brooke settled into her dorm room at Utah Valley University.
It was quite the adjustment those first few days as she was getting acclimated to doing everything on her own. Such the perfect time for a child to realize how much their parents have done for them throughout their whole life.
Claire is in her element whenever she can attend a BYU game. She and Jacob went to the BYU/Kansas State game right after the first of the year.
She loves to get her blue hat autographed by players.
A bonus picture of Claire with the Voice of the Cougars play-by-play broadcasters Greg Wrubell and Mark Durrant.
Claire loves to draw BYU artwork. This one saying, "Glasker's back" made me laugh when I saw her Uncle Abe's comment, "Glasker's front." Just a little friendly uncle/niece ribbing.
Jonah got his first professional haircut. What a little cutie with that smile.
I had been notified toward the end of the year that I was going to be on call for jury duty. What I didn't expect was the day before Christmas I got this summons to appear on January 7th. What a great Christmas present!!??!!
It was going to be perfect because I had asked them to not schedule during the time I was going to Omaha and they respected my wishes.
As unluck would have it, Glen and I both got sick the last week of December. He had sinus infection that went into his lungs, went to the doctor, got put on an antibiotic, had a rough few days, and then he got better.
True to my pattern, I couldn't just get sick and then get better. I went to urgent care on Saturday, January 3rd where I was put on prednisone for my cough and wheezing as it didn't appear I had infection anywhere.
True to my pattern, prednisone alone never works to relieve my struggling to breathe. After a horrible night Tuesday, I woke up the morning of jury duty and knew I could not handle participating as a juror.
In the meantime, on Tuesday our freezer quit working. We had been anticipating this for years and years as it was so old. We bought it used back in Georgia. There were signs we should replace it but never did.
Struggling to breathe and feeling like I was constantly running a marathon from coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath, I had to clean out the inside fridge freezer to make room for some freezer food and then empty the big freezer into coolers to preserve the frozen food. It was a big job when I was not feeling well at all.
Glen was able to get on the internet and order a new freezer to be delivered the next day. What a blessing! The only thing annoying was jury duty preventing me from being home to accept the delivery. Glen was going to be busy going to the eye doctor and picking up Maverick and then later picking up Levi from preschool.
So, we had Rebecca come over to wait for delivery.
Meanwhile, off I go to report for jury duty where I told them I was in distress and needed to go to urgent care, and besides, they wouldn't want me there all day coughing my head off. My name was crossed off the list. I hope I get credit for showing up and they don't call me again for a long time.
I was able to get an antibiotic and another tapering round of prednisone with the diagnosis of bronchitis. I had so much hope at that point for recovery...
Back at home, we thanked Rebecca by buying her lunch. That evening I was able to get all the food back into the freezer. All the meat had stayed perfectly frozen and I was counting my blessings for that.
Two days later, on January 9th, we had a finance meeting with Nani and my parents, and I was feeling horrible. I kept my mask on and kept my distance and didn't eat with them. I had no appetite and it felt like my airways were constricting even more instead of less. It was getting scary trying to get my breath.
Urgent care had told me they had done all they could for me and if I continued to have problems, I would need to go to the emergency room. By late that afternoon, I was really struggling and felt like the medication wasn't helping and so we went to the emergency room.
We sat there waiting over 6 1/2 hours for my turn to see the doctor. Fortunately, they had been calling people back to get tests done as we were waiting. I had an initial oxygen and blood pressure check, blood test, nose swab, and chest x-ray happening during the first hour or so of us being there.
I could see the results of those tests in mychart while I was waiting. It showed no communicable diseases and no pneumonia had developed in my lungs.
I had taken another dose of antibiotic that evening while sitting in the emergency room waiting area and a couple of hours after that, I felt my airways opening up a bit, so I decided it would be okay to leave and hope the medication was finally kicking in and doing its work.
The next five days were not as intense as that evening of fighting to breathe, with each day bringing hope of one day closer to recovery.
But, alas, not so. True to my pattern, I needed more help. On Wednesday, January 14th, I messaged my pulmonologist, and fortunately she responded quickly to try and help me. She was concerned about being on two rounds of prednisone this illness and another round of prednisone during my Thanksgiving illness, not to mention antibiotics both times as well.
She decided to try a different antibiotic to see if that would help and put me on AUGMENTIN with no prednisone.
The first dose at 4:30 that afternoon kicked in and really helped me start feeling better. I had a feeling of lightness and hope. It seemed that was the answer. I was so hopeful that I started packing for our upcoming trip to Omaha with our flight scheduled for the next afternoon.
But, alas, trouble struck during the night!!
I had been sleeping upright in the recliner in the basement and was feeling so much better I tried sleeping in the bed. As soon as I was in bed, I got the weirdest feeling. My heart had been beating so erratically, and my stomach had a strong gripping feeling. It was very unsettling, so I got up and went downstairs to the recliner.
My whole upper body felt like it was in a viselike grip with my heart, lungs, and stomach being affected. It felt like my airways were constricting instead of opening up. I also had a horrible headache. There was a strange aura about the room and the only way I could describe it was I had the feeling of impending doom.
At 4:30 in the morning, I was putting a message in mychart to report the odd, unsettling experience I had been having.
Just wondering if other people have experienced the same thing I had while taking that medication.
Thankfully, my pulmonologist responded quickly to my nighttime report that I would not be taking any more of that medication. She suggested taking Amoxicillin which I had on hand for times like this.
The whole rest of that day I felt absolutely horrible. Not only was I still struggling to breathe, and had a massive headache which lasted all day, but my body was also trying to recover from that nightmarish turmoil raging within.
Needless to say, despite packing for our trip to Omaha the night before, we called off the trip. That was a good call as it took me until Saturday for my airways to open up and be able to breathe normally once again. What a long illness!!!!
In fact, because I was feeling so good that day, we called to arrange a lunch with Dad, Mom, and Nani at Seven Brothers. It felt so good to be out and about again and especially it felt so good to be breathing easy once again.
Nani left the leftover raspberry sherbet from Christmas Eve in our freezer knowing how much Ben loves the sherbet/ice cream slush drink she fixes every year.
I was a good mom and bought the other ingredients and then we mixed it all up on Sunday when the children and grandchildren came for dinner. Ben was happy about the treat.
It has been the craziest no-snow winter I have ever experienced in Utah. Literally no snow! Day after day after day! Lots of sunshine and no snow!
Rachel put up the cutest post raving about Escape Boredom.
We love the rave reviews the escape room has been receiving.
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