David

So a lot has happened since the last time I posted. Easter, baby blessing, 3 birthdays, ect. But with your permission I want to skip most of those and just focus on one event. David's birthday. I want to devote my blog post to him today. So here are the many sides of David Drorbaugh.

So let's start with the early years. David was born in Nogales (on the US side) and grew up in Snowflake before moving to Utah when he was 12. This is the house he lived in in Snowflake.

In Utah he met his best friend Matt Pyne. You'll see a lot of Matt in the following pictures.
David was super active and he LOVES the outdoors. As you can see from the following pictures he loves to hike, ski, mountain climb, mountain bike, camp, golf and fish.



It was a good thing that David was an outdoors sort of person because he was called to serve a mission in Honduras.

David and I were married in February of 2002, during the Salt Lake Olympics. We were married in the Manti Utah temple. Isn't he a total cutie?


Let's talk about talents now. The man I'm married to is so crazy talented! First let's talk about musically. David has a beautiful voice though he will often bemoan the fact of his "limited" range. This despite the fact that he can, and will, sing all 4 parts in sacrament meeting. Ward choir directors start panting when they hear him sing and will often try to recruit me (I am not so musically inclined) hoping he will come too. David sang in the BYU Men's Chorus and I hope someday he will have the opportunity to follow his mom into the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

But the musical talent does not end there! David plays both the piano and the accordian very well. He serenaded me with the accordian on our first date, playing songs from Lady and the Tramp.

Also he can literally pick up any musical instruments and play music. I have seen him play classical music on a slide whistle. It truly is a gift and one that has blessed our family.

On top of being musically brilliant David is also a good cook, he did most of the cooking our first year of marriage and taught me the joy of cooking without a recipe.
He also enjoys target shooting and hunting when given the chance. I love this picture of us shooting together.

David also loves photography and has overloaded our computer with pictures of plants, flowers, trees, and bugs. When he was younger he did some painting and I think there's an artists soul inside him waiting for a time to break free.


He is also, as most of you know, a total computer geek! He spends a lot of time on the phone walking other people through their computer difficulties. He has a gift for explaining things in a clear, concise way that is easy to understand.


One of the quirky things about David is his viewpoint on sports. He enjoys all of them, especially football but he's never been able to justify sitting down and watching sports for 3 hours. After about an hour he's fidgeting to get up and do something. This picture is from when we were engaged after a BYU football game.

I can't talk about David without mentioning what a great Dad he is. Each time I've told him I was pregnant it makes him very nervous. He worries about supporting our family. But by the time that baby is born he's mad in love and never looks back.


This is one of my favorite pictures of David. It's in the hospital after our daughter Daisy was stillborn. I'll never forget being in that room with him and crying together for the daughter we had to say goodbye too. His presence was such a strength to me and his tears, so seldom seen, were a beautiful tribute to our child.


David graduated from ASU in 2007 with a degree is Civil Engineering. He got a job with Standage & Associates. I don't understand a whole lot of what he does, but sometimes we drive to remote places like this and take pictures of dirt.


David is an extremely dedicated worker. He pours everything he has into what he's working on. He always wants to present himself and the business he works for in the best, professional light. He's truly a team player, not looking for glory or credit but trying to help out as much as he can. He's been like this in every job he's had, from delivery to the Engineering company he works for.

You'll notice that none of these pictures are recent. That's because I have basically no recent pictures of him. For 6 months now David has been working 70-80 hours a week to support our family. 6 months ago David started working a second job at Wal-Mart so that we could pay off debt and build up our food storage. Then there were some salary cuts at work and all of the sudden we are very grateful for our second job which helps us to make ends meet.

I have never heard David complain about his work schedule although he is only getting 5 hours of sleep a night. In fact he's often saying that it's not that hard and that I have the harder job. I feel so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man, who is willing to do whatever it takes to support our family. A righteous priesthood holder who has been my rock through all our trials and continues to be a calming influence in my life. We are truly soul mates and my marriage is the only thing in my life that is never a trial.

David, I love you. You are still my hero.

Where's Granna?

For those of you who aren't LDS, let me explain. Twice a year we have something called General Conference where the leaders of our church speak to us from the Conference Center in Salt Lake. During these meetings there is music provided by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, of which my digustingly talented mother-in-law is a member. So each time they sing we play our own version of "Where's Waldo?" Trying to pick Granna out of the 300+ member choir so the kids can say they saw Granna on the TV. Needless to say it is not super easy (especially since the cameramen seem to like the altos better and Wilma is a soprano). This year we were lucky though and saw her several times on both days.

Cutest Kids Ever!

There and Back Again, A Drorbaugh's Tale

We're finally home again. We've spent 9 of the last 14 days in the hospital. Eli was released from the hospital last night. The first thing he wanted to do was get a burrito. LOL No more jello thank you! Then we came home and all of us crashed immediately. The doctor's never figure out what caused the infection he had. The surgeon though it was something viral but there was a slight chance that it was from his PICC line. They removed that right before we left (another fun experience for us) and that made me cringe because it means they are going to have to put an IV in again when we go for his appendectomy. I tried to convince them to do the operation while we were already there but the surgeons wanted to let the inflammation go down before they operate. Oh well.

You can tell how bad Eli was feeling in this picture. His fever was 104 at one point.

This is when he started to feel better, he's showing off the window clings that his Aunt Lindsay sent over for him to paint.

I love this one. This is Eli doing his IV dance.

Give me a break. This kid is so not sick. But very cute!

I look more sick than Eli does in that last pic.

On happier news I have a new nephew! David's sister Celeste had her baby last night. A little boy, 8 lbs and a couple ounces. And I'm pretty sure his name is Caleb. Celeste if that's wrong I am so sorry. I'm pretty sleep deprived. Love you and can't wait to see that little guy!

Thanks everyone for offering to help and double sorry if you tried to call me at the hospital yesterday. My phone was off the hook for about 7 hours. We love you all and appreciate your prayers so much!

and the saga continues...

We're back in the hospital. Eli was readmitted Monday night with a fever and stomach pain. We did another CT Scan and it is not his appendix this time. The doctor's are trying to figure out what's causing the infection. I'm going to bed now and then back to the hospital. I'll update in a couple of days when we're (hopefully) home again.

Stay at home nurse?

So this is our routine for the last week. Every 8 hours Eli needs his antibiotics so we go through these steps at 6 am, 2 pm, and 10 pm every day.

1. Mom gathers all the materials. 2 syringes of saline, 1 syringe of heparin, alcohol wipes, and Eli's antibiotic bubble (as he calls it), and my surgical scrub.

2. Wash hands vigorously for 20 seconds. Did you know it's the actual scrubbing motion of your hands that gets them clean more so than what you're cleaning them with? I didn't.

3. Then I use the alcohol wipe to clean the cap of Eli's PICC line. We count to 10 scrubbing the end and then do 10 seconds around the threads where the IV screws on.

4. Once we're clean I inject 5 ml of saline to flush his line and make sure it's open. I then allow Eli to squirt me with the remaining 5ml in the syringe, (and mentally curse the nurse in the hospital who taught him that).

5. Then we hook up his antibiotic bubble. This is very cool, it's a bubble inside of a bubble and it's pressurized so we just pop it into his little fanny pack and he can go back to doing whatever he wants. It takes about 20-30 minutes to finish the dose.

6. When he's done I scrub up again (Thank goodness for the surgical scrub! It doesn't dry out my hands like regular soap would. Though I do smell like a hospital all the time now.)

7. Then I disconnect his medicine and flush his line with 10 ml of saline and then follow that up with 3 ml of heparin to prevent clotting.

Then we're done! He's gotten very used to this...even a little proud of it. Look at his cocky smile in this picture. The other day I heard him bragging to Emma that he got poked, "fifty hundred times," at the hospital. He also loves his little fanny pack. He got to wear it during Sunbeams yesterday and was so thrilled to show everyone his bubble medicine.

We go into the hospital tomorrow for an ultrasound and follow-up with the surgeon to set the date for his surgery. I had to throw this last picture in. This was the night after we came home from the hospital. Eli was eating dinner and it got really quiet so I went to check on him and he was fast asleep in his chair.

Clicking my ruby slippers

There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

Wednesday night Eli woke up crying and I thought it was a bad dream and put him back to bed. Then Emma woke up vomiting so I assumed they both had the flu and waited for Eli to start throwing up too. By the next morning he still hadn't but I was worried about him because he was walking funny, all hunched over like an old man and said his stomach hurt. I still thought he had the flu but asked David (who had taken a sick day) if we should take him to the doctor. We ended up going to see our pediatrician that afternoon.

Our pediatrician asked a couple questions, watched him walk around and then did a quick exam. After pushing on his stomach a couple of times he said, "It's appendicitis and I think it might have already ruptured." With that he turned around picked up the phone and was talking with the pediatric surgery unit at Banner Desert Hospital. He told us to get in our car and go straight over there and the ER would know we were coming.

David is probably facing several speeding camera tickets for our 10 minute drive from the doctor's office to the hospital. My parents met us there and took Emma with them for a sleepover at Granna's house. In the ER we were taken back and then hunkered down to wait. He had an X-ray and a CAT scan ordered but before we could do any of that we had to get an IV in.

I just want to take a moment here and say I was amazed by the lack of urgency in the ER. I mean his appendix had possibly ruptured and they were all walking around like it was no big deal if it had. I know some of the nurses didn't believe that he had appendicitis because he didn't have some of the normal symptoms like diarrhea and vomiting. But I know it was a direct blessing of the Lord that he didn't have those symptoms. If he did I would have assumed it was the flu and not taken him in. Who knows what would of happened then>

Anyway, back to our story. I'll spare you the 90 minutes of IV hell, and just tell you it took 6 tries to get an IV into that boy at the end of which we were all shaking, crying, and wanting to go home. Those little kids know just how to break your heart. During attempt number 4 or 5 Eli looked at me and screamed/cried "Don't do it, don't hurt me, Mommy please take me home, please no more ouchies!" I was not the only one crying in the room. All the nurses were very nice except for one who was brusque and not sympathetic who I almost smacked during her attempt to put an IV in.

After that we were ushered out for X-rays and cat scans. Both of which came back showing a badly ruptured appendix.The pediatric surgeon came to see us and tell us that he wanted to treat it with strong antibiotics and do the surgery itself in 4-6 weeks. We were going to be admitted to the hospital for 4-5 days.

Thursday Night- Admitted to pediatric ICU. Antibiotics started.

Friday- PICC line placed. This is a type of permanent IV, it goes through his upper arm and into his chest. This was so he could continue getting IV meds after we went home.
Friday night moved to the regular pediatric floor.

Saturday- Anitbiotics and waiting. Eli is very bored with hospital room, we spend a lot of time in the pediatric playroom. We also buy him a DVD player so he could watch movies and so Mommy doesn't have to watch anymore Cartoon Network.

Sunday- Antibiotics and waiting. Mommy comes down with Flu. Lovely.

Monday- Antibiotics and waiting. Eli feels much better, Mommy feels much worse.

Monday Night- released from hospital and home health nurse comes to show me how to administer Eli's antibiotics. We all fall into bed a sleep like the dead.

For those of you who made it this far here is a brief series of pictures that Eli took of his hospital stay.

Eli is tentatively scheduled to have his appendix removed the first week in May. Thank you everyone who helped, especially Mom, Dad, Adam, Christy, & Chris for watching Emma. Bryan for bringing me food, Lindsay for wanting to help even though she and her kids were all very sick, my homeschool group for meals for the week, and everyone who prayed for us. We love you all! And by the way, if you haven't seen me or my new haircut before that is NOT the way I normally look. That is my "5 days in a hospital, with the flu, and no sleep" look. :-)