Spencer's wisdom teeth surgery...ouch!

So the night before Spencer's surgery was a stressful one, I knew his blood sugars had to be perfect for the surgery, and if he went low, we would not be able to do the surgery because he needed to have an empty stomach for 8 hours prior. So, I got up every two hours throughout the night to check his numbers. He ended up almost going low about two hours before the surgery and we had to take him off his pump. This then resulted in his sugars going up, which was good, but we didn't want them too high, so we played around with his dosages for a few hours and by the time we got to the clinic it was good enough. The surgery went well and he was done within one hour. I cannot believe how much those oral surgeons make! Jeff should have been one! Spencer was so nice about the cost and offered to pay half. We of course didn't let him, he just finished paying for his schooling and his funds are low. But what a nice kid! I am so glad he is not into worldly things and that money is not a focus for him. He will enjoy so much more of life this way... After I got him home I went to fill his perscriptions, unfortunately this took an hour and by the time I got home Spencer was in a lot of pain. This was the only real time he suffered. Once we got ahead of the pain he did very well. I got up throughout the night again to keep on top of his pain. It's amazing as mothers how we don't need to sleep when we have a job to do. I have taken some pics of him and you can see for yourselves the process. We are one step closer to the mission! Yea!


Spencer Just home from surgery


Liquid diet for 3 days:Chocolate peanutbutter protein shake


Spencer with a smile


Day 2 post op


Day 3 post op and feeling fine!

Happy Easter Weekend!

I wanted to teach myself how to make custom cakes, so I did some research online and came up with some recipes. I made an almond pound cake with butter cream fondant. The frosting was difficult to work with, so I abandoned my original idea for the design and pieced together this sad looking cake. But hey, everyone has to have a first attempt right?

First attempt at cake decorating

The Saturday before Easter our good friend James got baptized. Jeff spoke and I said the opening prayer. They had a great turn out to the baptism, many ward members didn't even realize James was not a member he has been so involved with his wife and kids. So Congrats!!! We had a nice luncheon for everyone at their home after. Saturday night we had our dinner group and that was nice, we didn't get kicked out of this restaurant so we had to pay! Ha,Ha. That night we colored eggs and Kylee and Spencer had some friends join us.
Easter morning the kids got their Easter baskets and we went to church. After church, I made our traditional Easter dinner and we were able to just relax and enjoy the day. We hope everyone had a great day too! Happy Easter!

Kicked out of a restaurant!

So we had a busy weekend, beginning with dinner and tickets to the vocal group the Coats... We were kicked out of the restaurant we at in, and the owner-manager-cook was the one doing the kicking...you know there are no checks and balances when your are the only one in charge. Hey, free dinner! The details are basically our friend was charged $40.00 for some lamb chops that were sub par, his wife had a hair in her food and they gave my husband the wrong order. When our friend tried to show the owner-cook-manager the problem with his food, the owner yelled at us to get the H---! out of his restaurant because we were looking for a free dinner, and we didn't even mention the hair issue. So we happily left and will never go back... on the way out I happened to mention that I was an undercover food critic,hoping that this would snap the manager out of his crazy ways and make him realize how unreasonalbe he was being and apologize, what was I thinking. He didn't care and told me to write whatever I wanted. With this open invitation I have decided to give my review here. Food: to expensive for what you get Quality: there is none,Service: poor ( once the waitress found out we don't drink alchol she abandoned her duty and we didn't get the opportunity to order soda or get our waters refilled) plus her stretch marked clevage was hanging out all over! Yuck! Owner: rude and arrogant! (He forced us all to leave and we would have happily paid for everything else, which was well over $120.00)...so would you like to know where this event took place so you don't have to go thru what we did? Auguri Ristorante in Auburn. Luckily the night got better, we loved the show with the Coats!

Questions regarding Spencer's diabetes...

So my friend Kristen asked, "By the way, i just read the post on diabetes, sounds great!! But how will Spencer's diabetes affect his mission. Will you have to send him supplies in the mail? Will he have to be in the US? Anyway we are very excited for him."

His diabetes is in good control. He had a dental work up and a physical as part of his requirements to serve a mission. His doctor and his dentist both recommended he was in good health to serve a mission and that his diabetes would not be a complication. We will have to ship him supplies, and I am not sure where he will serve, many others with Diabetes type 1 have served in the states, so this is what we are expecting, however we have found no written information from the church on policies in regards to health issues and where missionaries are called.

Spencer will also be getting his wisdom teeth out soon, he had a scheduled appointment last Friday but had a sinus infection and the dentist could not do the surgery because of the risk of infection. So we have rescheduled that.

Spencer just finished another quarter of college and has registered for his final quarter before his mission. He is doing great! Thanks for asking...

Update on Spencer's mission papers...

Well, it seems our new bishop didn't understand the nature of the mission papers we gave him. He is a new bishop and Spencer is his first missionary. The bishop thought that if he sent the papers in, Spencer would get the call to report to his mission before he was 19 years old. This however is incorrect, on the paperwork there is an area where we can give an available date to report and we put July 1st. This way Spencer is finished with his quarter at college and has a few weeks to prepare. So the bishop had not mailed them to Salt Lake. We are so disappointed. We will have to wait another few weeks and hopefully get the news... On another note, Spencer's longtime friend Ben had his papers into their bishop a few days after Spencer and has received his mission call to Jamacia! How fun!

Amazing news for Spencer who suffers from type 1 Diabetes!

Human trials to begin on 'diabetes cure' after terminally ill mice are returned to health
By NOEL YOUNG - More by this author


Breakthrough: Mice have similar blood to humans, meaning test results are promising

Email newsletter Most diabetes sufferers could be cured within four years if a revolutionary treatment involving the BCG vaccine works, scientists said yesterday.


A human clinical trial with hopes of finding a cure for type 1 diabetes is to start at a leading American research hospital using BCG, universally given for many years in Britain to prevent tuberculosis.

If all goes well in later trials, the treatment could be approved for ordinary patients in four years.

Volunteer patients are now being enrolled for the trial at at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The aim is to find out whether promising results obtained by Dr Denise Faustman in mouse studies can be applied to human diabetes.

Her studies have shown that mice with a form of diabetes closely resembling type 1 diabetes in humans can be cured. “Hundreds of mice were involved in a number of experiments over a period of years," said Dr Faustman.

"All were suffering from type 1 diabetes with only about two weeks to live."

“They started improving within days after the first injection of BCG was given, and were eventually free of diabetes."

The vaccine destroyed abnormal white blood cells obstructing the production of insulin, which is needed to prevent diabetes, she said.

The first step in the human study is to determine whether the same strategy using BCG vaccination can be used to modify the abnormal autoimmune cells present in type 1 diabetes, sometimes called “juvenile-onset” diabetes.

“We are pleased to be starting human clinical trials,” said Dr Faustman.

“We are making the step from curing diabetes in mice to determining whether it will work in men and women with diabetes.”

Mouse blood is very similar to human blood and a clue as to whether the vaccine programme is working could be available within months of the start of the trial.

“One of the beautie of this is that BCG is a drug that has been tried and tested for 80 years, “ said Dr Faustman.

“There is no multi- million-dollar drug approval pipeline. It is a generic drug and will be cheap to administer if it works for humans.”

Type 1 diabetes usually starts during childhood or adolescence when a person's immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

Complications can include kidney failure, blindness, amputations, heart disease, and strokes. The risk of complications is closely linked to the elevated blood sugar levels.

Maintaining near-normal sugar levels requires life-long demands on the patient, including frequent blood sugar monitoring and at least three daily injections of insulin or use of an insulin pump, along with restrictive diets.

Dr Faustman, a diabetes researcher for 15 years, realised that reversing Type 1 diabetes would require a drug that killed the bad white blood cells.

Going over years of records, she identified BCG, one of whose side effects in combatting TB is that it does just that.

Type two diabetes, which is an adult-onset illness often linked to obesity, is a different disease and not likely to be affected by the American trial.

Jensen's snowboard pics!

March 9th 2008

This last weekend was a busy one for our family. Spencer and Kylee had a school dance to attend. Spencer went with his girlfriend Teiha and Kylee went with a few of her school friends and me. We went to Denny's for a breakfast dinner, and then I dropped them off to the dance. Here are some pics. About an hour before his date ;Spencer got into a car accident. He was driving home from getting a haircut and didn't see the car he t-boned. Spencer and the driver of the car he hit are fine, but the car he hit had some major damage, and the cops and the fire department showed up. As you can imagine, Spencer panicked and went into slight shock. I had Jeff drive to the scene of the accident and help him out. Spencer got a ticket and we will have to inform our insurance. I am sure this is just another trial before Spencer's mission. He was as white as a ghost when he finally got home, but he was able to snap out of it in time for his date, and we had Teiha drive, she is such a good sport. So that was our exciting weekend. Kylee got to go tubing in the snow for a birthday party and Jensen got to go snowboarding for the first time with some friends. Life is good. We also got some good news from some old friends that live north of us in Marysville, my friend is Katie and her husband James is getting baptized in a few weeks. Congrats!!!