A trip to the emergency room with Britt......we are now done, we've had enough.

Happy Birthday to Britt!  I can't believe I have a 19-year-old!  Britt is an amazing kid, I coudn't ask for a better daughter.  She makes my job of being a mom easy!

This has not been a good week, in fact, it's been a really, really lousy week.  On top of Abby's clinic news and Brock's car being backed into and dented at school, I also got to take Britt to the emergency room in Riverton last night! 

This past week, Britt had been getting sicker and sicker.  She had a bunch of swelling in her neck and chin area, and the her neck started getting really stiff and sore.  Then she started having a hard time swallowing and she couldn't turn her head at all.  We tried to just ignore it and hope it went away, she had these same symptoms twice in the past 6 months.  We were just watching and hoping for no fever.  But, unforunately, on Saturday, as we were driving back to Salt Lake to attend my nephew's missionary farewell, Britt spiked a fever.  As soon as my dad saw her, he said it was time to take her to the emergency room, and it's a good thing we did.  After taking some blood for labs and a CT Scan on her throat and neck area, they found that Britt had an abscess in her left tonsil.  How do you treat an abscess in the tonsils?  It depends on the size.  If it's 1 cm or bigger, it has to be drained surgically, anything smaller than that is first treated with antibiotics to see if that will bring down the size, before having to surgically remove it. The size of Britt's abscess was 9.7 mm, now that's cutting it close!  They gave Britt some IV antibiotics, as well as pain medicine and some steroids.  Thankfully, we got to go home that night, with strict instructions that if it gets any worse, we needed to go right back in.  It was a relief to finally know what was going on with Britt, I had really started to worry.  The not-so-good news is that because Britt has had this 3 times in the past year, and each time it's gotten worse, she will need to have her tonsils out the next time she has a break from school.  From what I've heard, this isn't the most fun thing to do when you're Britt's age.  Just another surgery we'll be looking forward to at our house.   Today she is doing a little bit better.  The biggest problem is that she has a lot of pills she's supposed to be swallowing, which is hard to do when you have an abscess in your throat that makes it so you can't even swallow your spit very comfortably.  Hopefully, things will get easier for her soon.  This is not a fun way to spend your birthday!

At least we got to attend my nephew's farewell and visit with family and friends for a little while before we got back on the road to get Britt home.  Zach, you gave an awesome talk and you will be a successful missionary!  Hearing him speak was definitely the highlight of our not so great week.

 As I started driving home, I was feeling a little better about things, and then I saw the cop hiding behind the construction equipment on I-15 holding his radar gun pointed right at me.  Every time I've been pulled over, I've been able to talk my way out of it and only get a warning, but this guy didn't even give me a chance.  In my defense, he was sitting directly in front of the "end of construction" sign and within 100 yards of the 75 mph sign.  But, that didn't matter.  20 miles per hour over the speed limit in a construction zone could be a hefty ticket.  He should have looked at my record and seen that I haven't had a ticket in 20 years, and if he would've known how many times I've driven that road in the past year and why, he would've had some sympathy.  But, he didn't even give me the chance to play the "Abby" card.  So, I guess it just goes to show that even when you're doing a good deed, you can still be punished.

 Honestly,  after this past week, I can't help but think, "Are you kidding me?? When is it enough?? Is there some reason I'm not supposed to just be happy?? " I'll admit that I've been feeling a little picked on. I'm not sure why I keep having to deal with so many things, but it sure seems like it might be somebody else's turn for a while.  I feel like I've rebounded really well through everything this past year, but, it's starting to get a little harder to do.  I just want NO excitement, nothing, for a while.  It's been 2 years, almost to the day, since Britt tore her ACL.  It seems like that was the beginning of all of this.  Before that, we were just normal.  I think 2 years is enough, we are done now.  We've had enough.