Saturday, September 30, 2006

"What's next, Papa?"

Romans 8 (The Message) 
15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
 18-21 That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
 22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
 26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Nothing major yet

We still are here in the hospital waiting. Waiting on God!

They might be tapping my belly again today it is very large and uncomfortable again.

One thing I have found from my extended stays is it makes life so much easier letting God give me the strength for the moment, and not doing it on my own. Also my mom has told me so many times, Life is all about attitude, in every situation you can either sour or mellow. Your attitude can become bitter at life at everything or you can choose to take life as it comes one thing at a time.

I just pray that the people God brings into my life today in the hospital that my words will point people to Christ and and be a blessing.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

I am still here

This has been probably one of the hardest stays in the hospital that I have had. I am loosing blood somewhere in my body :-( so and the doctors don’t know exactly why and were. So they are giving me more blood and now they are planning a colonoscopy to get a closer look inside. The problem is I am having a very hard time getting trough the bowel preb. My stomach is revolting!
Yesterday (Mon) they tried to start a PICC line on me 4 attempts and all of them failed. Today they sent me to Angio to have it started with a minimal amount of contrast it only took them about 6 pokes and then they were finally successful but my arm is dead with pain...

All of the rest of my veins in my arms are bruised and having issues. They were running out of places to draw blood for labs from. Morning and night and sometimes during they day I have lost track (again) I am probably around 10-15 pokes/misses I think my averages right now have been 2.5 attempts to 1 good poke.

I am just so tired and exhausted from all of this hospital stuff. I know right now I am no longer running on any of my own energy or adrenaline it is all God and His strength right now. Just when I think I can’t take it any more and am ready to give up he comes up with another shot in the arm “You can do it Micah don’t give up just yet” This to will soon pass. Either somebody will come by and say Hi or an e-mail. I try to keep things in perspective “It is not about you it is all about God and it is for His glory that we are going through this!” This is far bigger than anything you can see right now. But in the end many will see the miracle that God is building right now. It is a weird place to be from my position to be standing/waiting for a miracle. He can still miraculously heal me from the inside, bring this second liver transplant and we fly trough it like the first one or even better, or he opens a third option that none of us saw coming but those are the best ones sometimes because we are forced to stand back and say WOW isn’t God amazing!


Monday, September 25, 2006

I spoke too soon

I am now once again back in the hospital. :-( I had a very rough night Saturday with fevers and intestinal stuff. :-( I wish I didn’t need my food processor at times and could just pull the whole thing out. Be like an air fern, and live on just air... Yeah I know it would cause other issues, but I already have issues... Sunday morning I mentioned to my mom that one of my liver drains looked like blood, which worried her a little but after an hour or so it cleared up. Then a couple of hours later later I had blood in my bowel movement and at that she decided to call if nothing else to keep the transplant team up todate, and there immediate response is bring him into ER today. So I have learned docs don’t like intestinal bleeding.

So I am still a pin cushion. 3 attempts to get 1 IV started. :-(

Lord, why am I going through all of this? and how long will it take? Yet I know in my spirit that it is not my place or need to question. I just need to live for the here and now and bloom where I am planted. You will give me the strength to make it over the next hurdle which is were I need to be focussing. I can still trust Your promises that “All things work for your Glory” So it is not about “me“ and my minor discomfort (this to will soon pass) it is all about God and His glory! Not what I have done or overcome but what He has done. He is the one that gives me strength for the next 5 minutes!

Friday, September 22, 2006

So I guess it is time for the update

The Pin Cushion still lives. This visit in the hospital is right up there with most pokes and stabs and misses visit in the hospital. I lost count somewhere after 10. I will get back to the high-lights in a bit.

For the people that don’t like reading lengthy entries to sum it up:

=== Start of speed reader summary ===
I have now been discharged(thursday) and am once again at home waiting for the transplant. I have just slightly more energy then I had going into the hospital but I still sleep a lot. And when I haven’t been sleeping I am getting ready to go to sleep a lot. The docs say there is nothing growing in my big uncomfortable belly at the moment that will cause problems for the next transplant if it happens soon.
=== End of speed reader summary ===

My pin cushion experience started out in the normal way. Micah tells the nurse that I am hard stick. My veins look easy when they show there face but don’t be fooled the roll and move and colapse anything they can do to not get poked and since I haven’t eaten much and everything goes straight through they will be even harder to keep still. Oh and you can’t use this one this one or this one :-) because of previous IV attempts and failures, have a nice day.

Like most hospital stays they want to start with an IV. And I guess something I said to the nurse decided she didn’t want to attempt me, She said I am going to go find someone better then me to give you your IV. A few minutes later 3 of the crew from life flight come into my room, to start an IV on me. I felt privileged it takes away some of the fear knowing that these guys poke people in is some of the worst places and conditions Utah terrain can offer and they save lives. It is funny working with TV you see the “Talent” as normal people not so much star struck. Well having Life Flight working on me I have to admit I was star struck. I know they are just normal people but still... Not many people can say that their IV was started by life flight and I wasn’t in a stupid accident that left me all mangled so I wouldn’t remember what happen.

So they go looking for a vein and looking, and looking... Ok will try this one, ready poke... It collapsed on us before we got all the way in... Lets try this one on the other arm, ready, poke... Deep breaths, ok we got it your all done. My veins are still a challenge even for the crew of Life Flight, I don’t know if that should make me happy or sad...

Next they took me for a bed ride back to one of my most frequented places in the hospital radiology... And my favorite department Ultrasound they wanted to TAP me. Stick a needle in my bloated belly and let it just drain. Ultra sound looks around and wow you have quite a lot of fluid in there. So lets start with lytocain ow sting woo pressure then in goes a needle ugh ick ick ow. And then they hook up a bottle and we wait for the bottle to get full and then on to the next. So while we wait for things to drain I got to have a really good talk with the ultrasound tech. Not to get to gross out or offend my friends that like to drink, but as it was filling the bottle it came out the color of a light beer complete with foam on top. So it was pretty cool to see the effects of my belly getting smaller. They took 6.5 liters out or at leas that was when I started to go dry on that TAP, had they stabbed the other side they could have probably gotten about that much more. But the body reacts funny when it sudenly looses a lot of fluid. And I was no different, as we got ready to go back upstairs I threw up. I freaked out the nurses cause they thought it looked like blood. But I assured them it was vegitable beef soup from lunch the last thing I had eaten. It tasted a lot better the first time.

When I got back to the room the vampires were waiting for me. We need blood for this, this,and this test. We need blood cultures (2 different sites so 2 pokes). Next day this is your early morning wake up we need to take more blood, for these daily tests.

Some of the blood test taken were watching my hematican(???) levels. All I know is something about the blood level in my body. They like to see it around 40, I was at 18. Since it was so low the solution is a blood transfusion. So another poke for type matching and then another IV because the one lifeflight put in was to small. But after having something to eat my veins tend to be a little happier. I have never had to have a blood transfusion before. You would think that I would when my gut is cut open for the liver transplant or something dramatic like that would be a cause for it. No I need one after laying in bed, and sleeping. The doctors were scared that I had some internal bleeding or something. But all there tests came back negative.

They say that what I am experiencing is just later stages of liver failure. And I am in need of a transplant to fix it. We all thought it would have been great to get it when I was in the hospital right now, go from one room to OR - ICU - another room. All the paperwork was already done for admitting and stuff. It is a fine line with how long they want to keep you in the hospital. There are all the germ bugs floating around making it very unsanitary. Plus the hospital was at capacity right now so they were having to send people to other places because there was no room for them.

The rest of the pokes all just run together so I have lost track of numbers. Now I am back home. One of the many good reasons is I don’t have vampires and doctors coming in to wake me at crazy hours in the morning :-) I can sleep in.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

I am back...

I have been re-admitted to the hospital again. Unfortunately it was not because of a phone call say we have a liver for you. This time my mom called the transplant coordinator to let her know that I am not doing so good. She was worried that I wasn’t eating, and sleeping all the time, she wanted someone to look at me and see what she was seeing. The coordinator talked to the doc and they decided to admit me cause it sounded like I was becoming dehydrated. The have also decided that they want to poke another hole in my belly and drain a bunch of this excess fluid, checking for infection or anything else. So unfortunately I am not going to be able to help with tonight’s live program (Sorry Denny)

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Still sick

So I am sure you have been wondering where I have been since I haven’t updated anything. I wish I could say I have been doing something very active and feeling really good. But that is not the case.

My health has gone down hill a lot this week. Monday my blood labs came back with my t-bil levels are still higher then it has been. So they recalculated my meld score and now I am at 25. (I was about 17 on the prior transplant) It puts me at number 2 on the transplant list. They think by next monday I will be even higher. But in the mean time while I wait I get to enjoy my stomach being very extended and painful, my skin is very yellow, and the spiders inside my skin are coming back also. I have been fighting so many low grade fevers I have loss count. Almost every part of my skeleton hurts, and you can’t forget that I have no energy either. I know that God is taking me on this coarse for some reason I don’t know why, I just hope it ends quickly

I am glad I can turn it over to him and trust that He will work all this for his Glory!                

Sunday, September 10, 2006

An answer to my prayers!

In January The Rock Church announced that in september they were going to plan an overnighter at Camp Utaba in september. When I heard that I was very excited and really wanted to go. My prayer was that I would be healthy enough to go with my church family and friends back to the place I grew up at. 1st time going to camp as a guest from Salt Lake City. I had witnessed it many times from the other end as people got there or as they left but I was never part of the whole adventure.

Well even though I am not doing very well health wise. My eyes and skin are becoming more and more yellow and my belly is retaining more and more fluid (again). My mom didn’t think I should plan on going. What if the hospital calls what if you come down sick, what if your drains leak... what if... etc. Can’t we go up and check into the hotel in the valley... “Mom, you are missing the point of the whole overnighter”, “I have my fears and concerns also, but God has got it all figured out.” I am going to trust that God will stop me if I am not suppose to go. He could easily put me in the hospital or make me to sick to move. I am not going to not go on this overnighter and miss what God is doing at the Rock Church for the off chance that in the same 24 hours that I am gone the hospital will call.

I know God has a sense of humor but even his humor works out for his Glory!

So I went and I am so glad I did. It was a neat trip, and a great time to fellowship with family and friends. The thing that would have made the trip that much better for me would have been if my belly was miraculously healed and it wasn’t distracting me with the normal pains and uncomfortableness.

God is doing some great things here in the Salt Lake valley and I hope that I can be in a place were God can use the gifts and talents he has given me for His Glory and purposes.

<>< One life at a time, One world in our lifetime <><

I think my dad was a better photographer

My dad took a lot of pictures while we were at camp. He had some amazing pictures. I have tried to reproduce some of his shots but I can’t do it. He wins.


This is a picture my dad took with a 35mm camera that turned out amazing:





This shot was taken with a digital camera that I took trying to reproduce his amazing shot 10+ years later.


Wednesday, September 06, 2006

to many pictures?

So does this mean I take to many pictures (borderline addiction,and I have been going through withdrawl) or does this mean that I have gotten really bored taking one at a time and have way to much time on my hands, to put them all together?



Tuesday night, I took some pictures of the Heart of the Matter set with Sean McCraney. It is amazing how much stuff we can have off to the sides that is never seen on TV because of the angles the studio cameras are set up in.

Monday, September 04, 2006

This is what I want my life to be...

Warren Barfield \ Mistaken

I shouldn't have to tell you who I am
Cause who I am should be speaking for itself
Cause if I am who I, I want to be
Then who you see won't even be me
Oh the more and more I disappear
THe more and more He becomes clear

CHORUS:
Til everyone I talk to hears His voice
And everything I touch feels the warmth of His hand
Til everyone I meet
Sees Jesus in me
This is all I wanna be
I wanna be mistaken
For Jesus
Oh I wanna be mistaken

Do they only see who we are
When who we are should be pointing them to Christ
Cause we are who He chose to use
To spread the news
Of the way the truth and the life
Oh I want all I am to die
So all He is can come alive

Til everyone I talk to heart His voice
And everything I touch feels the warmth of His hand
Til everyone I meet
Sees Jesus in me
This is all I wanna be
I wanna be mistaken
For Jesus
Oh I wanna be
Oh I need to be mistaken
For You
Lord i wanna be mistaken
Mistaken

BRIDGE:
May He touch with my hands
See through my eyes
May He speak through my lips
Live through my life

I want Him to
I want Him to live

Friday, September 01, 2006

Oh now it makes sense...

I am so happy, I had enough energy to make it some place new. I can say I did something that people do during summer vacations. Today I made it to the zoo, it has only taken me 15 years to get there. And my energy stayed up enough to walk up and down the hills. It was my moms energy that gave out by the end of the outing.

I was always surprised why when my friends and I were looking for something to do and I mentioned going to the zoo they were never interested. They said the animals at the zoo always make them sad. I could never quite figure out why. All of the zoo’s I remember going to were really neat places, they had the animals in well kept native like habitats. They also worked really hard at hiding the fences, but still keeping the animals and guests safe. I guess I got spoiled, the Portland Oregon Zoo, San Diego Zoo, Sea World, Chicago zoo. So I had my expectations and childhood memories set a little to high for Hoogle zoo. I now feel the same way that most of my friends do, it is a sad place. The animals are stuck in tiny cages almost lifeless. I was hoping to get some good pictures but all the animals that were doing something interesting the fences were across their face. Or something in the background that changed the whole image from look at the neat animal to look at the animal in a cage. So now I can say I have been there done that and be satisfied not going back for another 15 years or so. The one positive note, for being an outdoor activity/park tourist place the prices are not outrageous!







Well now it is off to work.

Zoo fun anyone?

I know it is last minute, and most normal people have work or school on fridays but I am thinking of, (and hoping my body will let me) going to the zoo for a few hours today. I am thinking 11:00ish-3:00ish and then force myself to go to work afterwards for a few hours. I haven’t been able to reliably make it to my goals so we’ll see how today goes.

My entire reason for going is I want to have some new subjects to shoot with my camera, and be able to say I did something more this summer then just sit in a chair inside. So if you are one of those strange people that woke up today with the thought I have nothing to do and would like too also try going to the zoo give me a call or e-mail me.