Little Help Here?

I want to change my blog background, but I don't want it to mess up any of my layout. Where do you go for your backgrounds that work well for this??

Where to start??

There is obviously way to much to catch up on, since I went on a hiatus from the blogging world, over 9 months ago. And, lets face it, probably no one even checks my blog anymore, cause there's nothing new ever going on here! :)

First thing first, I guess my "check-up" post didn't make a lot of sense to people who have no idea what happened. Sooo, I'll re-cap.

Back in March 2010, I woke up one morning, everything was great. I was getting the kids ready for the day, when all of a sudden it felt like I had a "charlie horse", but in my left thigh. It felt like my muscle was flexing, and there was nothing I could do to relax it. I tried sitting down, I tried rubbing it, nothing was helping. So I got up and started doing Kate's hair in the bathroom, when all of a sudden my knee started to hurt real bad and I couldn't put weight on my knee or my leg would give out. I finished doing her hair and sat down on the ground to call Russ and tell him what was up. While the phone was dialing, I lifted my pajama pant leg to look at my leg. I was in for a surprise. It was all sorts of pretty colors: purple, blue, red. And, it was about twice as big as my right leg. At this point, 5 to 10 minutes had passed since the initial onset of pain.

I immediately was "freaked out". I would love to say Russ answered his phone on the first call..or the second..or the third..or the...you get the picture. I had to call him like 10 times before he picked up! He was in a meeting and thought I was just calling for some little thing. Anywho, once we connected, I told him what was going on and he immediately said I had a blood clot and he was coming home to get me.

(Self portrait while I was waiting for Russ, this is about 10 minutes from start of pain in leg)

The 20 minutes it took him to get home felt like an hour, and the drive to the hospital felt like 50 miles. My leg hurt soooo bad.

(sorry you get to look at my great legs! )

(Looking for a heart beat in my foot, by a little ultrasound machine)


Long story short--er...got to the ER, after an HOUR (and an ultrasound), they indeed agreed it was a blood clot. A major one. The blood clot went from just below my belly button, down to my foot. The ER doc, who was not young by any means, said he had never seen a blood clot that big, or come on that fast. They then started me on blood thinners and told me they would have to send me to Ogden because they couldn't "handle" my situation at good ol' Logan Regional. We waited while they figured out which would be faster, ambulance, or life flight. Well, life flight would have been longer, so I got a nice ride in the ambulance to McKay Dee.

I could write many stories (most of them "horror" stories), about what happened over the next few days...but we'll skip it. I had a catheter put in my vein behind my knee that ran up my leg to where the clot started to deliver "blood clot busting" drugs to the residual clot. After two day of that, they went in that same catheter and placed two stents inside my vein. There is a place just above the left groin area where the major artery that runs to the left leg, sits on top of the major vein that runs to the left leg. That artery can sometimes compress the vein, causing little or no blood flow to the leg. The name for this is "May-Thurners Syndrome". Its actually pretty common (more so in girls that boys), but usually doesn't cause any problems. Could have been in combination with my birth control too. Who knows.

I survived to tell the tale, and still have two legs. For that, I am very grateful.