Girl Scouts

If you don't know already I am the Service Unit manager for Girl Scouts of Montana Wyoming.

I volunteered to take on this after a previous service manager had to step down, I was already attending all the meetings. Also in the process of gaining my communications degree which helps lead meetings. As well as managing the monthly service unit meetings we have a ton of different events we plan for the year.

Girl Scout Events

• Homecoming Parade 10/6/18
• JGL Brunch Around 10/31
• Sew-In Nov 9-10
• Pies 4 Fireman - Nov 21
• Christmas tree decorating in December
• Cookie Rally, Jan last weekend in January
• World Thinking Day - 2/22
• Pine wood derby
• River Clean-Up - 4/20/19
• Day Camp – Usually 2nd week in July

To top off all these events there is Council events we include in these! Girl Scouts are very busy and very active in our community.

My other hat I wear is troop leader of 3552, this is a small troop at Russell School that consists of 8 active girls! This is a great group of girls, we just introduce the tradition of patrol leaders to teach girls more leadership skills as well as learning how to mange conflict when this arises.

In order to do all of this I have 2 emails, a personal email, and a Girl Scout email. Constantly checking my emails, and text messages from parents or others. Along with all of this I use punch bowl to make events, survey monkey to gain some input from people, and our troop has a Facebook group which I am constantly updating with information and adding events for our troop. Always checking the different Girl Scout pages as well.

I follow many Facebook pages they include
Missoula Girl Scouts https://www.facebook.com/MissoulaGirlScouts/
Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming https://www.facebook.com/GSMWcouncil
Girl scouts of Southwest Montana Region  https://www.facebook.com/girlscoutssouthwestmontanaregion/

Girl Scouts (GSUSA) https://www.facebook.com/GirlScoutsUSA/

For my meetings, I look up the badges on the GSMW.orgs website, log in to the toolkit and see what is necessary for the badge. Then I scour pinterest for ideas. Once I am done I gather all items needed for my lesson plan and put them in my 31bag. 

When we plan events out side of regular meetings I look for inspiration on multiple badge websites. Lie we have a really cool surprise event for our girls on December 22nd. I wont go into details right now because I would hate to have any of the details get out! 

We just finish fall product sales, and now we are moving into cookies which EVERYONE love cookies and is very popular. This is also a huge undertaking we clean out our outside storage unit and rent a uhaul for this pick up of the cases of cookies. Because we are the one troop the sells the most cookies each year. 

So I ask you all if you see a girl scout leader say thank you to them because they do some much. Maybe not as much as this but a lot. I appreciate all the leaders in Girl Scouts they are AMAZING! 

Keep it up!!

x

Transition

Well this month has been on heck of a month. 

My family started this month off with a vacation to Salt Lake City Utah. While there we went to the lake, missed the zoo which was a disappointment, But made up for it and went to the city center mall. Ate some steak at Sizzler witch was the best!! Had the most memorable view from our hotel room which was located in Park City Utah. On Thursday Russell, Lucy and me went to a concert. We saw Ozzy. Even though it was raining the entire time, and people were smoking pot in our section seeing the price of darkness was the best. It was amazing, to see him come on stage in his shinny purple robe and then just start belting out music like he was a young singer. He ruled that stage, then there was Zac Wilde who know how to play the guitar and he rocked the crowd. He walked through the isle. Zac was about 10 feet from us playing his guitar it was amazing, the best part of his solo was him playing his guitar  with his teeth. We left the stadium and sat in the traffic line for a long long time, and then drove back to the hotel in a rain storm. That was one heck of a drive to remember. I told Russell never ever will we have our hotel half hour away from where we are doing an event... I was praying the entire way to the hotel, that was the only way to calm me down.

When we got home we were so sore that weekend we hardly did anything. Lucy walked in the parade with the Girl Scouts. The float won the second highest award The Mayors Award. 

The following week me and grandma were on a mad dash to get her preoperative work done. This included an echocardiogram, pre-risk assessment appointment and the day before the surgery labs and ekg. We left for Spokane at 12:30 on Monday October the 15th, finished the last items we needed to in Spokane at their hospital. Navigating the maze of a hospital, the parking garage was a maze in itself. After getting out of the hospital we made it to our family's house. She was so gracious enough to invite us into her home for a few days and let us sleep in her grandsons room. It was so nice of her to help and save us a lot of money. Not only did she let us stay with her she helped talk to the doctors and get info for us when she was visiting my grandmother. She also got our family in Spokane to visit grandma so that she was not alone. 

I wish the check in process was easy but it was not. we found out that because grandma took plavix 5 days before her surgery, it may effect the pain medication they want to put in her back, that is an epidural medication. So we had to make a hard decision that if we did the epidural medicin it could clot in her spine and bleed out and make complictions worse. The risk of that was a bit high, but grandma did not want to be in pain and wanted to take the risk. So i inforemed the family and they pushed her away. I was thankful there was a chaplin that came in before and prayed with us before the surgery, that ment a lot to my grandmother and me. We had a lot of people praying at home but to have people in the hospital pray made it even better. After they rolled her away I went and got my self Thomas Hammer coffee the best coffee in washington, and zips bugers! went back to my cousins place. 

The day of the surgery after grandma was checked in I hung out with my cousin Sue. We had my phone handy for updates. All the updates we got every two hours were good. the first one was the cancer had not spread, second was she was doing well and was still in surgery, third was they were doing the dissection, and finally we got the doctor call and he said she did well got the cancer tumor and she was getting closed up. So myself and Leon were preparing to get hers stuff ready to bring to the hospital. We finally got to the hospital and called to check into the nurse, she said grandma has about half hour in recovery then she will be moved up the the 5th floor. Problem was her room needed to be cleaned and they explain that the hospital was full. We waited walked around went to the gift shop and got grandma an elephant. half hour passed and called again a different nurse explained it could be half hour to an hour... Told us the room was still needed to be cleaned and she needed an hour for a medication to work. she informed me that there was a cafeteria that while we were on the phone just closed, and then told me where the vending machine room was. Me and Leon went to the vending room got him cookies and a lunch able, I got a drink we sat ate and then went to the lobby and waited for the phone call. It was nearly a half hour just enough time for me to watch an episode of 'The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell' on Netflix. I took Leon up to the fifth floor we waited again because we beat the nurse there. Waited again outside the room then I asked if we could go in the room, I set up her room, put her bag in the closet, set out her robe, blanket, tooth brush and other items she may have needed. 

Finally she showed up, I sat with her for a minute and then said good night and went back to Sues place. 

I tell you all that because during the week the fifth floor nurses were giving me updates on grandma, since my name is on the file. The hospital mysteriously lost the advanced directive I had filled out that had myself and my fathers name on it, which makes it even more stressful as the week went on. Thursday I got a phone call from the nurse on the 5th floor, she told me grandma was getting transferred to the 9th floor due to a heart irregularity and they are able to monitor it better. During the weekend I never heard from the nurses on the 9th floor ever. I called Sunday to see how grandma is doing the nurse Jess at the Providence Sacred Heart refused to give me any information. I am on her file, and she told me that the 5th floor was going against protocol. I gave up trying to get information called grandma told her about it, she informed me that sue was with her when Dr Mejia was in the room and I can call her, and grandma told me about 10% of what Sue had told me, this is why I request to get information from nurses. Not because grandma cant its because she doesn't remember the medical lingo. I called the risk management at that hospital and have not heard one word from them. 

Grandma Pat is home. She is living with me at my house right now. The only thing we are dealing with is getting some more of her creature comforts from her room at her sons house. 

Signing off for now.. 

Laura the very tired caregiver of 2 children, a husband and now my grandmother!! 

DR stuff.... 2016

Well I posted on 3.14 I was having and MRI. I had one of my brain to see what is going on and how much pressure is on my eye... now let's take you back a week before. I started to have stops in my vision. I didn't think anything of them cause they started at night and went away for the morning that was except til Friday 3.11 I had them all day and continued through. I still have them. basically I may have these the rest of my life or I may not... I am hoping not cause it makes it hard to do anything on my phone... and it is terribly hard to do much that requires focusing too much. On 3.14 I was diagnosed with papilledema of the optic nereve. With this I hope so much I won't need surgery and that the horse pills I am on will help... essentially at the appointment it was difficult to sit through. I first sat in Dr. Babcock office, then he noticed my eye nerves were swollen sent me to Mccann. I did an optical field test and retina test all while my eyes were all ready dilated and hard for me to see in the first place... After all of that I went in to talk to mccan and he looked in my eye and said it was papilledema of an optic nerve. I had my MRI scheduled for 5:30 and took my anxiety med at 4:30. I waited till 8:15 and finally got back to the tech. Wednesday he told me he sent info to the people at community.
In the days that followed I had a spinal tap done at community medical center in Missoula MT. The first nurse who was a male country accent and seemed like he was flanoyently gay, on would assume. But since my spinal as near lunch he was on rotation. He had informed me he would be with me through the entire procedure. That was incorrect and as soon I was carted back to the prep area I was alone and vulnerable. As soon as the doc stuck the needle in my back I cringed. And my whole body shook, they finally got me a nurse who was catching up with paper work to come and calm me down because the doc needed me to be calm. They pulled 30cc of spinal fluid. Measured the amount and found it was way more then normal. I was released and finally home. But I will never forget how I was treated at Community Medical Center in Missoula MT. At that point further I vowed to never get any procedure done there unless absolutely necessary.

Hot Mess

I am a hot mess.

Lately I have been to so many drs and not getting anywhere. On January 19th I had my gallbladder taken out. The surgery was flawless, and recovery was ok some minor set back but I got over them. The one thing I was pretty upset about was the fact I was still having problems. I told my surgeon and he suggested to get an endoscopy to rule out heartburn and sent me on my way. Then since I was really annoyed with this and still getting pains I mentioned this to my primary and we started some blood work. It all came back normal, slightly elevated liver enzymes. So I was like ok still having the pains what's going on. He sent a referral to a gi specialist who has to "review" my chart before he will even schedule an appointment. Their office told me if symptoms still continue are emergent to go to the ER. Well after being shafted and having these problems still I went into the ER. He took my history and did an ultrasound as well as a chest x ray. both came back fine. I am at a stand still. Why am I having these pains.He prescribed an anti spastic med, it is supposed to help with my stomach to not be so irritated from not digesting well. I then was talking to my pharmacist about the med, he was surprised that this was prescribed when there is other meds that work better. My doc refilled what I have since it is working. Finally able to getting to a gi specialist mid April, and also on the waitlist if someone cancels. Which the receptionist says is highly unlikely.
Among all of my stomach, and gi problems I was talking to my obgyn about looking at if I have endometriosis. Since I have reached my max in benefits why not fix something that has been affecting our sex life. I don't wanna go too much in detail but if you were to look up the symptoms of endometriosis I hit most of them. It is and nasty thing to have. On the 25th of February I went in to have a laparoscopic diagnosis surgery. He found a spot of endometriosis, and he also found something that has been causing discomfort. Since I am still kinda groggy from the anastasia I plan on waiting to call him and discuss what he found. The fact he found endometriosis and fixed what he found makes me relieved, I know it proly won't 100% fix the problems I deal with on a daily basis. But I am hopeful for some relief. To top most of this off I have been feeling depressed quite a bit lately. It is a very hard pill to swallow, and since I know the warning signs of depression I am trying to nip this in the butt before it gets worse. So as of now I am on a pharmacy of drugs, but all of them are working and once we start to figure out my gi problems I hope to get my life back and start working out and doing things I want to. Me and Russ went for a walk around the block, and then to albertsons. It sure was nice to get out and walk this is what I hope to continue this and then come home and eat dinner.

As all this is going on we moved. All our stuff is out of the old place except for Lucy's bed and Russells bike. We are working on cleaning up the old place it is really hard when immediately we step in the place and instantly feel sick from how much dirt is in the place. In our new place we have 3 bedrooms, separate living and dining areas, 2 bathrooms, we just got new washer and dryer, plus we have a dishwasher that works. since we have moved I have done well to keep up with dishes. Also trying to keep up on laundry with our new washer and dryer. We are loving our new apartment.

An update on the kids. Lucy is grown she is 3 feet tall and hardly weighs 40 pounds. still is in pre-K at Valley Christian and she loves it there. We plan on getting her into kindergarten at CM Russell. Leon has a bit of colic, we changed his formula from the similac advance to the enfamil gentle ease. We are slowly inducting some baby food since it doesn't seem like was to more than just formula and cereal. Leon loves it and wants more. He is grown, he is now in 3-6 month clothes. Russell is doing well I am very thankful that he has been by my side for most my surgery's, he missed my recent on cause he had to work. But his fill in for my recent surgery was really helpful. I appreciate all the help I was able to get from my family through all of this mess of problems I have been dealing with. I hope the worst is over with. I am very thankful for his work to help and be so accommodating to all the stuff. I have been dealing with lately. I hope that soon I can make it up to their office and make something for the here soon.

thanks for reading this.
Hot Mess Laura

I just want to eat pizza.

Well as my last blog post was about the birth of my second child this one is kinda like what's been going on since.

When I was pregnant I was getting these nasty nasty attacks. I was having sharp pain in my stomach on the left side and went to my back. When I have these attacks I also can't breath so I have my inhaler handy to try and get through them. At times they last for a few minutes or a lot longer. Most of these came from my diet. My diet isn't the greatest. Me and my husband are pretty lazy when it came to cooking. But I had a good excuse I was 6 month pregnant and the boy was sitting so low I was always in pain if I stood too long. This made doing dishes or cooking extremely difficult. When our baby was out I was recovering and it made it difficult as well. We ended up eating greasy food and what not. I mean when I was pregnant I craving pizza... when I ate pizza it will kick my butt the same night. I want to eat pizza again.

Well my ob thought it was heartburn I was on meds for a good while and I still had these attacks. Being annoyed I went to my regular doctor and asked him if it could be my gallbladder. Since I didn't disclose the key fact it comes right after I eat greasy foods like pizza. (I just want to eat pizza) He wanted me to take the heartburn meds twice a day. I did that for a week or so, he also ordered labs. They didn't show anything to suggest gallbladder is what my doc said when he got the results. In the midst of all this I was breastfeeding and dealing with the pain of the gallbladder without pain meds. After the new year I emailed the my doctor. I love this feature of being able to email him and say what do you think? This saved me an appointment to his office since he ordered an ultrasound to have it checked out, that took 1 week and a half to get into in itself.

January 7th I went in for an ultrasound at the Broadway building. Early in the morning we went to the appointment. By 9am I got an email I had gall stones. Also that he suggested a surgery to remove it. I sent the info for the surgeon who did my mom's hernia, and my aunt Kelis gallbladder surgery. My appointment with him was Monday the 11th. He asked his questions and did an exam then we discussed the surgery. The scheduler wasn't sure when we could get in because she had to coordinate with an assistant. I got the call from her today the 12th at 10:30. Surgery is Tuesday the 19th at 7:30am. My first though I had to call russ and inform him of this. I also texted my family, informed my work, lucy's school of pick up drop off arrangements, and had to rearrange the appointments I already had that day.

My hope with this surgery that we can eventually go back to reality and live life and not have another surgery or major health problem for awhile.

Leonard Patrick

This is Leonards birth story. If you wish,to read this continue one. I wrote this trying to remember everything that was going on that day amongst the chaos.

Read on if you wanna know how we progressed through the process of his birth.

On Thanksgiving we started to have contractions around the time dinner was served. This happened for about 2 hours then stopped. I was thankful but disappointed at the same time. We finished our Thanksgiving dinner and we're home at around 7pm that night. I was so exhausted from the day I decided to go straight to bed. The contractions began again around 9pm and we're steady. By midnight I was miserable in so much pain I was thankful to have a friend up and chatting with me in between contractions(thanks Kayce). By 2 am on Friday the 27th they were consistent and 20 mins apart. By 3pm I wanted to tap out and be done with the pain. At 4 am in the morning I was fed up and trying to wake Russ up. He wasn't moving. 4:46 I told my friend if Russ didn't budge I was going to leave without him. That point russ woke up. I grabbed the diaper bag we had prepacked, also my breast pump and my overnight bag that was ready from Wednesday when I had hoped my ob would have just done the surgery. We all hopped in the car as I was trying to find a sitter for my daughter I called my dad thankfully he woke up cause I also texted my mom and sister to see if anyone was up. I knew my parents had enough of lucys stuff I knew dropping her off with them I wouldn't need to pack anything. Makes for situations like this much easier.

6am  I was in the labor and delivery ward of community medical hospital all hooked up to their machines and waiting for already planned c-sections. They called my ob Dr Harvey but unfortunately he was already on his way out of town on a hunting trip we had already known about. His partner Dr Wyman was in doing a surgery.

The first nurse we saw was brief and we only saw her for a short time due to a shift change. She however confirmed we would be having the baby that day it would just be a while because I wasn't emergent. They had one scheduled and then a second mom was there that was laboring but they were on the fence if we would be second or third in the surgery order. Dr Wyman came in in the morning and introduced himself and told us the plan of what was going to happen. Still having contractions every 2 to 5 mins apart at this point. I could not stay comfortable. When shift change happened we had a new nurse who was very nice and pleasant. She helped to accommodate us as much as she could and frequently checked in on us. By 8am I was hooked up to an iv and was given fluids. This helped because I couldn't eat or drink anything due to a surgery happening. The fluids made it helpful for me because I was dehydrated. The nurse we were switched to was just about to put the iv in but I explained how much we I was poked last time with Lucy she decided to get the anesthesiologist(Wendy) to help or they were going to get an ultrasound from the er to put on in either way they poked me 3 times and finally got the iv in my forearm. I requested this option then her idea of doing it in my elbow.

From that point on it was a waiting game. It was at about 8 or 9 am when Dr Wyman was done and we were waiting for confirmation to tell us if we were second or third. This did not take long. By 10 we were told we were third and that the other dr was on his way to do the surgery for this patient. I was disappointed, I was still contracting and miserable. From then till about noon we waited. Watched tv, played cards, got up walked around, dozed off (not long due to either a nurse to interrupt or a contraction). By noon we were preparing for surgery, they gave me iv antibiotic doses, and that nasty shot you have to take before surgery that is just the worst tasting thing in the world. I was getting anxious for what was going to happen in the surgery room. I kept remembering what had happened during Lucy's surgery and didn't want a repeat of this. We found out when the second nurse was helping prepare tell us that she was not going to follow us into surgery and that the same nurse team that was in the first surgery will help with mine. I was a tad disappointed with this but just wanted to have this day over.

At 1:15 we were walking into the surgery room. (much different then with Lucy's since I was wheeled into the room) The anesthesiologist was there ready to get the spinal in, she explained everything she was doing. As with Lucy's I jumped when the first poke of the numbing stuff went in, I was told to relax, this was very difficult since I was raised up on the surgery bed and my feet were dangling, I did my best.
1:32pm I was all hooked up, the ekg machine hooked up to monitor my heart, and I had a tube around my nose to help me breath. At this point the dr was already to get to the surgery. I reminded the nurse we want the placenta as the surgery progressed. It was helpful to have the anesthesiologist  (wendy) there to help calm me and to talk to me. It seemed like the room was way more talkative then when we had Lucy it was so quiet and we had a tall male anesthesiologist.
1:38pm Leonard Patrick Arnold is born and all I could tell Russ was to check and make sure it's a boy. I had to tell them I wanted this confirmation because my niece was supposed to be a boy or so the tech said it was a boy when my sister had her ultrasound in cut bank montana.  We had a joke that if it was a girl then Dr Harvey would have gotten some crap for it since he does ultrasounds at every visit. Of course since we joked about that then Dr Wyman as he was stitching me up said and here comes the girl, he joked. 
1:47 I was able to see Leon, I was choked up seeing him. Wendy had to remind me to calm down and breath as I was borderline not breathing good. They were able to let me have a few minutes of skin to skin with the baby before we were sent to recovery.
2:45 we were in recovery. At this time I was able to breastfeed, and this is where the nurses pissed me off, because I made sure to let my admitting nurse I want to breastfeed on my own and I did not want any of the nurses to be groping my breasts to help me like they had done with Lucy. She still wanted to make sure he was latches, which I had told he was or I'd had told her he wasn't. We got about 3 or 4 minutes of a good latch. In recovery we had some ice chips and the nurse offered jello which for a girl who had not ate for almost 24 hours took this gladly didn't think it was a problem. When the two nurses that were helping transition me from surgery to recover to my room were ready to move me I threw up the jello. A bit of a hiccup that was quickly fixed.

When we were finally taken to our room we had Lucy with my parents waiting to come see us and the baby. I was so excited to see my baby girl I had her get right up next to me in the bed. We had few visitors that first night. My sister and her children were there I believe I may have seen my brother in laws face pop in but wasn't sure, we also had my aunt and her daughter come as well. We asked her to grab a few things for us real quick so we would be prepared.
All night I had been dealing with nausea, which was annoying due to the fact I had thought I was through with this after Leon was born.
I went home the following day from the hospital. I was up walking, did a lap around the ward with leon then without while he got some rest and people held him. The one thing we didn't anticipate was having a rib out of place, which was miserable to deal with right after surgery. Thankfully my chiropractor was able to help get it back into place and it slowly healed the strained muscles around the bone from being out of place.

time to catch up

Well it sure has been awhile since I have written one of these. I wanna update everyone how things are going and what we have been doing so far.

Lets start off with lucy she is easy. She is now 4 years old. Had one of her tubes fall out and it looks like when the other one falls out we are outta that. Which means no more specialist and no more surgery for her. She is also in pre-K at Valley Christian School. We decided that this is what we will need to do in order for lucy to get use to a classroom setting depending on if we keep her at Valley or a different school will be up to what they teach and where we live. Lucy will also be starting her first season of soccer that is offered at the YMCA.

Russell had a fun summer. He was offered a way better job in a different department on campus, as well as offered a level 3 where he is now. Definitely used the leverage of having 2 people wanting him was nice. He is still in the same department, higher pay, more stress, more work but it's a job, and who can say they have a career like Russ does at the age of 26. Russ has cut back on his soda intake which I believe has been helping his heart burn problems. This is an instance of "I told him so" because he went through a surgery(kinda) microscope down his throat to tell him he has a bad stomach. They wanted it repeated but we really couldn't afford it. I told him "I bet it is all the soda you drink". And needless to say he is doing better. He was recently installed as an officer at the lodge he is a Mason at this last month as well. Makes me proud to be his wife and support him in this since he has been wanting to go back and be more of a member. Well now he is stuck and has to go. We hope to get me back in the star chapter I was apart of soon.

I myself am still with Northwest homecare. I am planning on staying with them until baby #2 is born. 3 more months, then I have to decide if I wanna continue with NW or look for a new job. We will see what life has in store. I have also started to finish my bachelor's, since I did a semester at the mountain campus and would not be able to do this semester we decided to do online schooling for myself. It sure is a learning experience but one I hope to overcome.

We are expecting our 2nd child if you haven't read the other post made in April please do. This child is a work of God's grace for sure. We found out about a month ago we are having a boy. This will be the first grandson for my parents and Russell's parents. As well as the first great grandson from my father's (Shane) mother's side (Nyla). There hasn't been a boy on her side since my cousin Clark was born in the 90s. My mother's(April) mom (Pat) it is the first great grandson as well, also a fun fact we haven't had a boy on her side since my brother was born in 1986. So needless to say this boy sure does have a lot going for him. Leonard (Leon) Patrick Arnold.