Patience, the NEW Endurance Sport!

It started up here at 5:30am...and didn't stop until about 7pm. You did good though... I'm glad you made it home :)

WAY TO RUN like the wind!!! Check out those fast splits at the end. See...you have it in you to run fast!!! Sorry about the cold hail and snow assault. Glad you survived. I was driving over SunCrest to the Draper Temple Open House when the storm hit. It was a white out blizzard. Good thing there wasn't too much traffic on the mountain.

Hi Marion! Good job for keeping up your running. I guess I fizzled but I'm not totally giving up yet! The weather today was crazy. Is your dad coming home from the hospital tomorrow? Hang in there!

So - maybe if someone runs behind you and pelts you with paintballs, you will be motivated to speed.

Awesome times - sorry about the weather. It hit in Salt Lake at noon...

Wow! You DID run like the wind to get home. Your splits are awesome! You've been holding out--there's a lot of speed in those legs!

April- I am a total hold out ;) I get injured when I run fast too much, so I am doing the same thing you are doing, building the base and let the speed come later when my body finally gets the idea that I am not going to give up ;) Oh yeah- and when I weigh about 30 lbs less ;)

Maurine- the pelting job is open... do you have any spare time ;) That job sounds like a fun one

Hey Kylee :D My dad came home last night (monday). He is VERY happy to be home. Everything is just like the docs like to see. What they like to see is still hell though. This has been a lot harder than any of us could have imagined. I can't even imagine what you have gone through with your parents :( Are you feeling better? Are you at the top of the bottom yet? ;)

Smooth- I am glad you survived the storm and made it home :) It is sure beautiful up there. How would it be to live across the street from the temple and virtually on the Porter Rockwell trail?

Lori- You guys got clobbered! I wasn't expecting it, as I have not turned on the tv for a week ;)

I tried, but with my accent it comes out, holy clap.

Holy Crap is right, Nice Splits!!!!

Nice speed! Good for you!

Marion,

How are you doing today? How's your dad? Is he going to cardiac rehab? It is a good therapy program. I made my hubby go three times a week after his open heart surgery. Hope things are looking up for your family.

Those are some super speedy splits, especially for crappy weather!!! Sorry you got caught in the storm, I hate it when that happens! Dang Utah weather.

Smooth- Please tell me Larry's story. My mom (and me) need to hear a success story.

Marion,

I have to warn you. This might be too scary; but a success story nevertheless, as you can see how healthy Larry is today.

I'll tell a short version of it. Larry was always healthy until he was diagnosed with a heart murmur right about the time he turned 50. We had told his dentist about the leaky heart valve; but the dentist dismissed it. He had some dental work done w/o anitbiotics in Nov 2003.

Larry experienced pain to his left shoulder on New Year's Eve 2003. Then throughout Spring of 2004, he got sicker and sicker. The family doctor thought he had the flu, kindney infection, blah blah blah. The cardiologist thought his heart was okay. He was hospitalized with kidney failure. He couldn't breath. He was swelling up. While we were in Boston at the end of April, he suffered a mini stroke. By the time we got home, he went into complete heart failure. It was then that they found out he had infection in his heart, both the aortic and mytral valves were destroyed.

They couldn't operate on him at the time because of the stroke. 5 days later, they had no choice because he was having atrial fibrillation.

He survived the open heart surgery. He was a fighter. He didn't take any pain medication 'cause it made me woozy. He took only extra strength Tylenol and was doing remarkably well. See, the cardiac surgeon, the cardiologist, the nephrologist and the infection doctor said he shouldn't be alive. They thought they could release him the week after Mother's day, wrong!

5 days post-op, he went into cardiac arrest. He developed cardiac-tymponade...he was bleeding everywhere (because he was getting mega dose of blood thinner). Long story short, they rushed him to the OR and opened up his chest again and tap his heart to relief the pressure. We thought we were going to loose him then. The doctor gave no promise. They kept him sedated for 48 hours post-op and in the ICU for weeks.

Once again, he was a real trooper. It would take 30 min. just to get him up to walk from his bed to the door of the room. Each day he would work at getting his strength back w/o any pain meds. He was on a lot of other meds, antibiotics, prednisone, insulin, blood pressure pills, etc.

He was released from the hospital the first week of June. He wanted to be back to normal by the end of the month when we went to Sun Valley and back to work July 5. I was his home nurse, giving him his IV med, checking his blood sugar and giving him insulin, made him eat 6 meals a day. He had lost all his muscle, his blood work looked like that of an Ethiopian surviving from a famine. He couldn't walk outside because one of the meds they gave him to stop the A-fib cause him to become photosensitive. So he would walk inside the house around and around at least three times a day. I took him to cardiac rehab. three times a week and the staff couldn't believe how fast he progressed.

Our son returned home from his mission the weekend of Pioneer Day and the whole family (including a healthy Larry) rode on the stage coach for the Days of 47 parade in SLC.

Today he is active and healthy. His artificial valves should last 15 years. We feel very blessed.

Smooth- Thank you so much for sharing that story. That is AMAZING. Wow, your family has been SO blessed. That had to be a horrific experience. What a miracle recovery.

Smooth, it is hard to believe Larry went thru all that and now he skis and looks like a million bucks, that is a wonderful story of over coming a terrible situation. I agree your family is very blessed.

Yes Smooth, he will be going to cardiac rehab 3 days a week starting in a few weeks. I really like the cardiac rehab guy. He wants to kick my dads bum ;)

Funny/gross story- The kids were up last night throwing up so I am doing laundry ALL day!. They are so funny. I wouldn't have even, known but the bathroom light came on at 1:20 and found my baby (3) getting a towel to clean up his bed so he could go back to sleep. I thought he could use some help ;) I cleaned him and his bed up and laid him down. He wanted a new pillow, so I grabbed the second one under Mac (5) only to find out that the reason his pillows were stacked was because he had thrown up on his pillow and just put another one on top of the mess and gone back to sleep. I guess my kids are more independent than I thought. Funny little fellows!