The ABC's of Me

I got this from my sister as one of those pass-this-along-to-other-people-via-email-chain-things. So rather than bother the 5 people in my contacts list with a chain email, I figured I would just post it to my blog -- And it would give me something to blog about ;)

A - Age: Twenty-Seven (do you hyphenate between numbers in your age??)

B - Bed size: Queen size (i've heard that a king size mattress is the first step to divorce)

C - Chore you hate: Washing dishes (by hand)

D - Dog's name: Don't have a dog...yet

E - Essential start-your-day item: Shower (more for those around me than for myself)

F - Favorite color(s): "non-BYU Blue," Purple, and Red

G - Gold or Silver: Gold, because it's more efficient. It's only 4 letters and only 1 syllable. Plus, it's got that hard "d" at the end that just makes it ... powerful.

H - Height: 5' 10 3/4"

I - Instruments you play(ed): Piano, percussion instruments (pretty much all of them - but the timpani are my favorite), saxophone, trumpet, and the tuba (which I played for about 3 days while we had a substitute teacher in band class and he didn't know which instruments we actually played)

J - Job title: Actively Seeking

K - Kid(s): Two. Alex (3yr) & Josie (17mo)

L - Living arrangements: Apartment

M - Mom's name: Kelley

N - Nicknames: Cory-oreo-cookie, Snuggle-Bear, Sugar-Pumpkin (I guess I shouldn't proclaim these, huh?)

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Not for a personal injury. I've stayed overnight at the hospital during the birth of both of my children and during Josie's first and second hospitalizations.

P - Pet Peeve: When people call me by my nicknames :)

Q - Quote from a movie:

R - Right or left handed: Well, I have both...does that count?

S - Siblings: 2 brothers & 4 sisters

T - Time you woke up this morning: 3:10am, 4:30am, 5:55am, 7:05am

U - Utah is the only place I have ever lived. True or False?: False

V - Vegetable you dislike: Asparagus

W - Ways you run late: I don't usually run, so technically, I never "run late." (Ha, Ha, Ha)

X - X-rays you've had: My hand in junior high, my knee before and after surgery, and I think that I've had my teeth x-rayed a few times.

Y - Yummy food you make: Pancakes and Waffles

Z - Zoo favorite: The long lines...oh wait, you said favorite. I guess that would be when the lines are short.

My Afternoon with Bednar

I did not go to church today because of my surgery recovery. So I decided to have Elder Bednar be my church speaker today. I logged on to lds.org and found his talk from last week's CES fireside and that was my church message today.

His topic was "Truth," or rather "Things as they Really are." It was an incredible talk!! It gave me a lot to think about. He fulfilled the prophecy that Paul made when referring to the "man of sin" being revealed by the prophets before the Second Coming. Elder Bednar spoke of Satan's desire to have us 1) misuse our bodies; and 2) minimize the need for our bodies. Of course, we need to cleanse our inner vessels and keep ourselves unspotted from the world; but the second half of his talk was most intriguing. (If you haven't heard it, please take the time -- about 40 minutes -- and listen to it.)

He spoke of how spending inordinate amounts of time in a virtual world minimizes the need for our bodies. It distracts us from real-life interactions and human relationships. All we need to function in cyberspace are a brain, hands, and your gluteus maximus (for sitting purposes), we wouldn't actually need to use our bodies. The adversary is tricky. Trying to get us to obsess over things are they could be in our virtual worlds, rather than focusing on "things as they really are" in our real world.

Now I am not using this as a doctrinal excuse to not blog anymore, or visit anyone else's blog. Nor is this a ploy that the Church is using to stop people from using Facebook or Twitter or Second Life. Elder Bednar's message (as other's before his) is to not let the things of the world distract us from our eternal potential. I don't think Facebook or Blogger is evil; but I do think that we can all fall into the trap of spending more time doing these things (including watching TV or movies, or sports, or even school) than we should and neglecting those things that are most important. Shiree and I have commented on several occasions where we put the kids in bed and we spend the rest of the evening not saying one word to each other because I'm watching TV or a movie and she is blogging or Facebooking. That is not what I want our marriage to be!!

The most poignant part of his talk was at the end, when he was bearing his testimony. He spoke of God's love for us and of the day when He will "enircle us in the arms of His love," that it will not be a virtual embrace, but a real embrace. I look forward to that day!!

ACL Reconstruction Surgery

So about 24 hours ago, I woke up from a chemically induced nap when my Orthopeadic Surgeon reconstructed my ACL in my right knee. How cool is that??

I obviously don't remember anything from the surgery because I was out for the whole thing. Here's what I remember...

After getting an IV placed in my left hand, they took me in to another room where there placed a nerve block which was to be used after the surgery was over for the first 24-48 hours to help with the "agonizing pain" that follows ACL reconstruction surgery. (Their description not mine. So far, it hasn't been agonizing but that's because my nerve block is still working -- my right knee is still pretty much numb). After that, they gave me a "relaxer" before they gave me the full-on anesthetics. Just so you understand correctly, they gave me an anesthetic before they gave me the anesthetics. Pretty cool huh? I love Western medicine!! After the relaxer I went back to my pre-op room where Shiree was waiting. At this point, I started to feel the effects of the relaxer. Although my mind was still clear, I felt pretty dizzy and started to get sleepy. Once the relaxer was in full effect, the surgeon came in to talk to me about the surgery. Yes, that's right. My surgeon came in to talk to me after I was relaxed with the anesthetics. Oh well, at least he came in before he actually did the surgery. After he left, I said goodbye to Shiree and they wheeled me into the operating room. It looked like a pretty cool room, but I didn't really get a good look at it because they wheeled me up to the operating table and after I transferred over to the table, they placed an oxygen mask on my mouth and it was really uncomfortable where they placed it. So I reached up to adjust the mask and...

the next thing I remember was waking up in post-op looking at a clock while someone was calling out my name. I tried to open my eyes, but everything was pretty hazy and blurry. So I just closed them and went back to sleep. When I woke up again, it was about 30 minutes later and I was much more cognizant, but still pretty hazy. The funny thing was that as soon as I could put two sentances together, Luisa (my nurse) was getting me ready for discharge. As she wheeled me out of post-op I can still remember that the room was spinning. I love Western medicine!

The effects of the anesthesia lingered for a few more hours and I remember a few things about what happened and what I said. For a more detailed account, read Shiree's post from yesterday about our funny "conversations." In my defense, I am pretty sure that even under heavy anesthetics, I would still know that the 18th Amendment was about Prohibition and not the 12th. But then again, I was pretty loopy. ;)

All in all, it went great! I had a great surgeon and I have some pretty cool equipment that is helping me with my rehab. Although, it turns out that when they opened me up to do the surgery, there was no meniscul damage and my MCL was healing just fine. The funny part was that my ACL was not completely torn. How funny! I am still glad I had it repaired, but I am just glad that my ACL was tough enough to hang on for two whole months after being ripped during church basketball.

For anyone who's interested, the doctor made a video of my surgery and added some pretty cool pictures. I am happy to schedule a viewing for any one that wants to see the inside of my knee :)