A call about Tyler

Yesterday, I got a call from Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. That is where Tyler was treated both times for his congenital diaphragmatic hernia. When he was born, he was there in the NICU for 28 days and then at 4 1/2 months we were back up there for 2 weeks when his diaphragm re-herniated.

Well, I get this call from the hospital and they want to follow up with Tyler. They are doing a survey and checking up on ALL of the patients that had their diaphragms repaired at Primary Children's. I had to ask, how many kids are you following up on?

*200 diaphragms were repaired at PCMC in the last 10 years
*Tyler was one of the top 50 on the list of severity (the top 50 had less than half of a diaphragm. Tyler's was even a lot less than that, so if they were to categorize it down more, he would have been even more up to the top).

She wanted to know two long-term medical problems:

*If he has PECTUS. The answer to that is NO. He did when he was first born, but when he was between 1 and 2 years old, it straightened out. I only remember it because when I would nurse him, I would rub that little dip in his chest. It was about the size of a golf ball.

*If he has SCOLIOSIS, and he does not. He has shown no signs of it yet, so we're hoping we can stay on this good luck train and stay far away from scoliosis!!!

Then she asked what lasting medical problems he has.

*He has pretty bad reflux. It is completely controlled with an adult dose of medication (same dose his Grandpa Clyde is on right now! haha!)

*He has an extra rib on both sides (he could have made 2 Eves in the Garden of Eden if he was there!!!)

*He has EXTREMELY flat feet. (that could be related to CDH or it could be from the Campbell family. There are several of them that suffer from severe flat feet, including Randy's brother, Cory. So, who knows with that one!?!)

When I was done telling her those 3 things, she was ready for the next problem and I had none for her!!! It was GREAT!!!! I love telling people how good Tyler's health is. Medically speaking, he should not have lived, let alone be as healthy and active, independent and awesome as he is!!!

It's easy for us to forget what an amazing blessing we have in Tyler. He's just a normal kid to us! Unless you see the gigantic scar across his chest, you would never know anything was ever wrong with him. But we love it that way!!!!

A wonderful moment in our lives....

Back in August, we got an opportunity that I wondered if it would ever happen. Dawn Williamson, the founder of CHERUBS, had been to a CDH conference in San Fransisco and on her way home, had a 2 hour layover in Las Vegas. She put on her Facebook that if anyone was around, she would love to have lunch at the airport and meet!!!! I instantly started crying!!! Vegas is only 1 1/2 hours drive from our house! WE WERE IN!!!!!

We drove to Vegas and waited for Dawn's flight. And then I saw her, glowing like the angel she is!!! Please take a minute to read her story. It was a moment that I have no words to express how it felt. I have learned SO much from her and the CHERUBS support group. We were sisters in a club together, forever. Our lives took such a different path, but our hearts are connected. 

Then I got to introduce her to MY CHERUB, Tyler. Dawn is in regular conversations in our family, not just my little family, but the grandparents, aunts and uncles, everyone know who Dawn is and how important she is to us. She couldn't take her eyes off Tyler. Her son, Shane, did not survive CDH and that is why she works so hard for CHERUBS, so there is a place where people can go, get informed and not feel alone. This meeting was completely amazing to me and my children.

This is Jill, she lives in Vegas and has a son that is Harper's age with CDH. He's doing really good, too. I can't wait to meet up with her again and meet her little man!!!

Here we are, 3 moms that have gone through the same situation. We will always be bonded like others are not.

And then we were off. Lots of hugs. Lots of tears. Sometimes I didn't know what to say, but I didn't need to say anything at all. Dawn knew what was happening in my heart. I thanked her for doing so much hard and painful work that helped MY family, directly and benefited MY son, directly. There are no words that can express what she means to us. A true angel on Earth.

As we were on our way over to swim at my Aunt Vicky's house, Tyler said in a very somber voice, "mom, this has been the best day of my life". It was life changing for us!!!!

Blessings are all around us, sometimes it takes reflecting on how things have been to realize how blessed we are that we even survived!!!

So, I'm glad they are following up with the diaphragm repair patients! It was a good phone call!!!

Good bye my sister :(

This post originally was drafted in mid-July 2012......

My sister, Blanche is getting to have the opportunity for her husband to have a great job and I am so excited for her...... oh yea, except for that part that she has to move 4 hours away!!!!! That's right, my darling sister/partner in crime/twin separated by 14 years..... you get the point. We are SUPER CLOSE. This has been really hard for me, even though I know it's the best thing for their family. Last Friday we all converged on Blanche's house to move her. There was Amy and Dan that came up from Vegas. There were the Frehners from across the street. Brittney and Chuck. Randy and I. Blanche and Michael.  We got the 4 horse trailer loaded up, the big trailer, the small trailer, Randy's truck and the rest of the vehicles bulging at the doors with stuff!!! I snapped a few pictures of my sister in front of this house in Hurricane that she had spent the last 7 or so years in and we were off!!!!!

We stopped for a Coke and life was great!!! Looking a little like the Clampets!!!! But we were ready to go!!! Well, before Cedar, the horse trailer had blown a tire. After getting that one fixed, it wasn't long before it blew another tire!?! Chuck and us had kept going because there wasn't much we could do, but they were worried about the weight on the horse trailer, so Chuck loaded some of his load on us (pushing us to the absolute limits!!!) and he backtracked an hour to help out.

It ended up that Trina (the one with the horse trailer) stopped at a tire shop and the original 2 tires also needed to be replaced!?! We kept going, there was absolutely nothing we could do, so our goal was to get up to the new house and get the beds on the floor so everyone could sleep comfortably.


By the time everyone made it in, that 4 hour trip was almost 9 hours. It was a long day.

Time for bed. Blanche, Michael, Matthew, Karley, Randy, Me, Maddison, Harper, Brittney, Chuck, Odin, Liam, Cort, Amy Lynn, Dan, Bridger, Noah, Brandy, Mark and baby Skylar. That's 20 PEOPLE sleeping on my sister's floors!!! It was great!!!

Morning came early enough. Time to get to work! Our good friend, Jeff Moss lives up there and I begged him to come over and help. It was great to have him there and get to see him!!! It was about 10 straight hours of unloading, unpacking and assembling.

These are some of the little ditties I found when I was unpacking the books. If you know my sister, these books will not surprise you :)

We were POOPED!!!!! We took Maddison up with us to help with Harper and that was the best thing we did. She was able to keep her out of the way and let me work!!! It was so perfect.

The girls treated ourselves to a little trip to IKEA after all of our hard work and then we were OUT again for the night.

That night, Odin wanted  to come to dinner with us!!! 

It was so fun having him (such a big boy) have alone time with us!!!

The next morning, Amy and Dan left pretty early. They had to go from Springville to Vegas that day.... YIKES!!!! We stalled as long as we could. I unpacked a lot more things and started to clean up after the move so Blanche and Mike would have a normal house to live in right away.

And then it came...... time to say goodbye. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. I instantly started crying like crazy. There is no way to help this feeling. I'm selfish. Nothing will soften the pain of this move, but it must be.

We said our goodbyes and got on the road. Right onto the freeway, we got into some pretty bad rain. It was off and on all the way home. I drove the big trailer home from Beaver!!! It was good. I cried really hard for about 2 hours. I'm going to miss her so absolutely much. It's hard to even put words into the relationship we have. But we can do this. We do hard things all the time.

This part really sucks, but we did it! On our way home, it rained like a DOG on us, but we made it home in one piece!!!

I have so much love and devotion to my sisters. I would have driven right back up if she had needed me. This is going to be good for them. I'm trying to be positive, but it's easier at times than others!!!!

I'm glad Blanche and Matt both got jobs and are doing good. We all have our boohoo moments, but it's getting easier!!!

Family Fun with the Memmott's!!!

EASTER 2012!!!

We took the kids to the Ivin's City Easter Egg hunt! It was so fun! We love it! It's not too busy, it's pretty easy going. It's the best one we've ever been to, that's why we keep going year after year! 

Here are the kids with their LOOT!!! Daddy got to help Harper and the older kids had their own strategies. Most of them decided to pass up the candy that was close and go right to the middle and get the big haul!!! It was fun for everyone!!! 

 This picture is worth a thousand words. Ivin's does an adult egg hunt when the kids are all done. This was my dad's very first Easter Egg Hunt that he got to hunt the eggs!!! He was 72 years old and had never hunted eggs!!! It's moments like that when I realize how wonderful my parents are. They gave me opportunities that they didn't even have for themselves! He was pretty excited about it!!!

Sunday was our annual family BBQ at our house. 

That's when the crazies come over and we have A BLAST!!!!

Launa and I expressing our happiness for the Easter Bunny :)

My niece, Brittney and I just being beautiful!!!

 Oh JR, JR, JR....... I know that look means, "I love you, Hopie. And I love that you take my picture and talk a lot and talk loud. I love everything about you, just don't tell anyone" ;) He loves me!!!

Tuacahn Choir Concert 2012

Tyler is in the Coral Cliff's school Choir, the Coyote Crooners!!! This is his second year and in the spring, the kids get the opportunity to go out to Tuacahn to perform with many schools from the district. It's such an honor for them. They learn so much from it. They look forward to it every year!!!

From Left to Right

Bottom row: Cambelle, Maddison, Tyler (the star of the show), 

Grandma Memmott and Grandpa Memmott

Top row: Me, Randy and Harper

My dad cracks me up!!!! 

He is always doing something silly to make everyone happy and laughing!!!

I love that our families are so supportive!!! They know how to make us all feel important! It's been one fun event, right after another!!! 

Team Clydesdale

My sweet niece, Layla had Type 1 Diabetes and there was a walk organized to raise funds for a cause/cure and raise awareness! Now, other than raising funds for it, we wanted to do something special. They came up with the team name, Team Clydesdales!!!! Then Randy got an idea of a horse to draw that would be cool for an 8 year old girl. He's so talented!!! This is a bad picture, but this is where he was before he added some fun touches.

Yes, we like our shirts!!! Purple is Layla's favorite color, so that was cool!!!

I just had to see if Randy's bum felt any different with his Team Clydesdale shirt on!!!! 

It was better than ever!!! 

The final product!!! Layla LOVED them!!!! GOOD JOB RANDY!!!

We walked and laughed and had a great time!!! I know I have other pictures, I just don't know where they are right now. I can't wait till next year. Hopefully Harper will be able to walk it with us and not be in a stroller and hopefully we will be able to get really committed to the fund raising end of it!!!

WE LOVE YOU, LAYLA!!!! Thanks for letting us support you!!!!

Back in the game!!!

I HATE guilt. I hate knowing that I have totally slacked off on my blog, so there's only way to fix this..... TIME TO BLOG!!!!!! I will be posting a lot until I get caught up to where I think I should be!!!


In May, I decided to take the kids out to Snow Canyon State Park and play in the sand!!! We had SUCH a fun time!!! We loaded up on Sunblock and water, found some toys to play with and headed out to make some fun memories!!!

It was pretty hot for just being the beginning of May, but what do you expect? The kids were digging and burying things and doing it again!!!

Tyler couldn't get away from Harper, she liked his sand!!!

This is the beautiful, orange sand that I grew up in!!! I LOVE IT!!! I love that it's only a few minutes away and that I don't have to wash it out of our clothes all the time!

We were cleaning sand out of stuff for WEEKS after going to the sand dunes, but we had a great time and we look forward to going again soon!!!

Tyler's story on the PCMC BLOG!!!

I am proud to type this post! Primary Childre's Medical Center has featured Tyler's story on their blog! Please go over and read his post and share it with your loved oned!!! So exciting!!! HIS STORY

You're doing WHAT????

This is my best friend, Anna Carter. We have been best friends since we were in-utero. We grew up across the street and then up the block from each other. We got married 2 months apart and had babies all at the same time. No, seriously, 3 of our 4 are so close. 

Her three are 5 months older, each than my 3. We only screwed up Tyler and Ashley!!! 

We have only ever lived within 5 miles of each other for our whole existence and Anna broke the news to me that they are moving up for Nephi to run the American Fork Deseret Industries store. Nephi is REALLY good at his job and he's started some cool programs that are benefiting our store in a major way, so I knew it was only a matter of time before they would snatch him up for another store!!!

This has not been easy for me. I'm selfish, but when Anna told me she was as sure about this decision as she was when she made the decision to marry Nephi, I knew it was the right thing for their family.

I am so happy for her family. So many new adventures. I am so sad for my family. We all (including Randy and Tyler) were sobbing pretty hard when we told the kids they were leaving.Thank goodness for texts, Facetime, Skype, Facebook, Blogs and the good, old telephone!!!

I am so grateful for the relationship that Anna and I have had all these years. 

To say we're "best friends" really cheapens how we feel about each other. 

It's more like a sister relationship.

I can't begin to tell how absolutely much I am going to miss her entire family. I love her kids as much as I can love them without the fact that I didn't give birth to them. They are MY family. I adore everything about them. Randy and Nephi get along great and it's just always been such a strong bond between us all.

But it will be ok. That's what my mom tells me when I curl into the fetal position ;) I can't wait for their new adventure and all the blessings they get from it!!!!

Anna's neighbors and ward members threw her a surprise going away party and invited me. It was such a great time!!!!

Here's Harper and I, waiting for the PARTY GIRL!!!!

Hadley Hope, me and Harper partying it up!!!

And here's Anna making a mess of herself. She was crying her head off, but only because I was making her laugh till she cried!!! That's one thing I got on her, I can make her laugh till she cries and sometimes even till she pees!!!!

I love this girl with every fiber of my being. She has a special place in my life, my kids' lives and to my entire family. I will miss her a TON, but I will do my best to be supportive.

I'm just glad I realized this party was a going away party and not a protest, I had my signs out in my car, I was ready to picket!!!! OOPSIES!!!!