Washington

The last week of March the kids and I went up to Washington to visit Grandma and Grandpa Dub. We flew from Denver to Seattle, which is about a 2.5 hour flight, then had a 1.5 hour layover, then flew back to Pasco, which is only a 35 minute flight. The kids did pretty well on the flight to Seattle. At the airport, we played Go Fish, colored and watched movies. The flight from Seattle to Pasco was very bumpy! We flew on a little puddle jumper plane, so the turbulence was much more pronounced. I was concerned about Erik and Lily, but I shouldn't have been. Lily loved it! She was laughing like crazy and kept saying, "Wheee!" She even told me, "Everytime the plane goes down it makes me laugh." The peopld around us were laughing too. The other funny thing that happened on this flight was a comment I heard from an older man a few rows behind me. Even though there were lots of clouds, every once in awhile you were able to catch a glimpse of the foothills of the Cascades. I heard this man ask, "What is that white stuff? Is that snow?" I smiled and nodded and the person behind him told him it was. He then went on to say he was from Florida and hadn't ever seen snow before. That's amazing to me that some people can go most of their life, or even their whole life, without ever seeing snow.
I forgot to take my camera, so I don't have any pictures, but we did some fun things. We played outside a lot, went to have lunch with my mom at her school, visited with my friend Suzie and her boys Dylan and Archer, played at the park, went to Chuck E. Cheese's to play and spent lots of time playing with Grandma, Grandpa and Corbin. We all got haircuts as well. Well, Drew didn't, but I should have had Teresa trim all his long, wispy newborn hairs he still has. Everyone slept well, which was nice. Usually when we go on vacation it takes the kids a few days to adjust to sleeping in a new place. That didn't happen this time....the kids adjusted fine after the first night. We tried letting Drew sleep in the playpen the first night, but he didn't sleep to well. He moves around too much and the playpen was just too small. He ended up sleeping on a twin bed with a rail along the outside. He slept great!
We were in Washington from Tuesday, March 24th to Tuesday, March 31st. We got in Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday everything was fine. Thursday morning I heard Drew crying about 6:30. He was sleeping in the room next to me and Erik and Lily were sleeping in the room with me. I jumped up out of bed and was suddenly very, very dizzy. I stumbled into Drew's room, leaned on his bed and waited for the dizziness to go away. It didn't, so I flipped Drew back onto his belly and stumbled back into my room to lay down. The dizziness got worse! A few minutes later Drew was crying again. I got up to go get him and could hardly stand up. I almost fell over when I walked into his room. I managed to pick him up, carry him downstairs one handed while clinging to the rail and put him on my mom's bed. I then proceeded to collapse onto the floor on my knees. I leaned my head against the side of the bed and felt very nautious. I had to keep my eyes closed because the spinning and dizziness was worse when my eyes were open. After a few minutes, I crawled into the bathroom, still keeping my eyes closed. I sat on the floor waiting for the waves of nausea to pass. I was finally able to open my eyes and stand up. I went back into my mom's room and told her how everything seemed to be spinning and felt sick. I then laid down and closed my eyes, thinking that would help. How very, very, very wrong I was! All the dizziness, spinning and nausea came back even worse than before. I tried many different positions, eyes open and closed but nothing helped. I finally resorted to kneeling against the bed again. After hearing my symptoms, my mom said it sounded like I had vertigo. I crawled back into the bathroom and my mom called a friend of hers in the ward, asking for some dramamine (motion sickness pills). She explained to Bonnie what was going on, but she couldn't help. Bonnie called back a few minutes later and said that her husband's office would be able to squeeze me in in about an hour and a half. Her husband is an audiologist (ear doctor) and some types of vertigo are caused by problems in the ear. I agreed. I was able to make it upstairs and sit on the couch, without moving my head too much, while I waited. Erik and Lily were very concerned about me. I explained that I just didn't feel good. Lily kept coming over to check on me and give me hugs. Luckily, my mom was able to take the day off work to take care of the kids. She's awesome! Anyway, I finally made it to the audiologist's. The doctor performed a series of tests by putting big goggles on me that were able to take pictures of my eyes. The info was sent to the computer, which mapped my eye movements. She then put a black cloth over the goggles and told me to keep my eyes open and fixed on the same spot I had been looking at. I did this in a few different positions, some of them lying down. I wasn't too excited about having to lie down. I moved very slowly as the room was spinning around me! So NOT fun! Sure enough, I had what was caused BPPV, which translates to positional vertigo. The dizziness is caused by changes in position, such as: looking up, tilting the head down, lying down, getting up from bed and turning over in bed. All of these movements triggered my vertigo. Lucky me! After the test, the doctor told me I had a very severe case of vertigo. We all have crystals in our inner ear that are floating in fluid. The crystals can float into an area of the ear where they aren't supposed to be and certain head movements cause the crystals to move around, which results in the spinning sensation and dizziness. The crystals in my ear were not where they were supposed to be, but they were also in a very uncommon place. It was a blessing that this doctor knew some head exercises to have me do which eventually made the crystals go back where they were supposed to be. The exercises involved sitting on the side of a bed and quickly lying down on my left side, letting my head fall down below the side of the bed. I was then to stay in this position for a minute. I had to do this three times a day for a week. The bad part of this was that the exercises actually made the dizziness worse at first. I took a couple dramamine when I got home, was able to take a short nap while sitting up on the couch and finally felt better just after noon. I didn't have any more spinning episodes. However, for the rest of the day it felt as though I had gone on an amusement park ride that spins very, very fast over and over. The result was that I had a slight headache and didn't feel quite normal for the remainder of the day. However, the next day I was great! I continued doing the exercises, but I didn't have to take any more medication. I returned to the doctor Monday morning, repeated the test and was told I was 100% better, although I already knew that. It was still nice to know that the crystals were back where they were supposed to be. We don't know what caused this vertigo, but it could have been the pressure in my ears and head on the plane ride. I was very nervous about the return flight because I didn't want a recurrence. I did a lot of praying on Tuesday, and was blessed that I had no problems after the return flight. I was also very blessed to be able to go to the audiologist I did because she knew how to treat this type of vertigo. Apparently, not all audiologist's do the treatment for BPPV. The Lord really was looking out for me, and things could have been much worse!
The trip back to Denver did not go as smoothly as the trip to Washington. We left Pasco about 2:00. The trip to Seattle took a bit longer this time....45 minutes. Not a problem. When we got to Seattle we had a 3 hour 45 minute layover! YUCK! It took us about 30 minutes to find and get to the terminal where we would catch our plane to Denver. We rode the train to the N terminal, after listening to directions in English then Japanese/Chinese. I'm not sure which language it was. Then we had to come up with ways to kill 3 hours. My mom had bought a bunch of snacks and new games for the kids. We did puzzles, played Go Fish, Slap Jack, Memory, watched more movies, walked around and around and around the terminal and ate at an overpriced Burger King. I think all airports should have a children's play area like Salt Lake and Houston. That would have been a huge lifesaver! I think it would be an investment that ALL air travelers would appreciate, whether they have kids or not. Finally, it was time to board the plane at 6:15 pm. Drew was getting hungry and tired, so I fed him a bottle while the passengers boarded. Then he fell asleep and 6:45 came and went without taking off. So we waited and waited and waited. Apparently, they were holding the plane for people from connecting flights that weren't in yet. I didn't think they did that. Turns out, the people we were waiting for were coming from Alaska, where that volcano was erupting. We finally took off about 30 minutes late. Luckily, Drew took another nap halfway through the 2 hour flight since his first nap was over before we even took off. Lily slept most of the way as well, curled up on the middle sleep. The flight attendants told me she had to sit up for landing, so I had to wake her up. That was not fun! She finally calmed down after 10 minutes. Erik occupied his time watching Howls' Moving Castle on my IPOD and eating snacks. We finally got into Denver just after 10:30 pm. Once we finally made it to baggage claim we had to wait almost an hour for our luggage. Geeezzzzz!!!! By the time we finally got home it was 12:15 am. The kids didn't get to bed until 1:00 that morning because their schedule was so screwed up. It was good to be home.
We had a fun time and Grandma and Grandpa Dub's, but it was great to be home too! Daniel missed us and we missed him. I've decided 5 days is about the perfect length for a trip when kids are involved. After that, they start to get a bit grouchy and ready to be home. Thanks for the fun visit Mom and Dad! We love you and can't wait to come visit during the summer so we can go boating and enjoy the nice, sunny weather.