Josh Being Sick

Wow where to start?

Josh was diagnosed in September with a genetic condition in which his triglyceride level is abnormally high when he got pancreatitis the first time. Normal triglyceride level is under 150 and Josh's was 3500. So he was in the hospital in September for about 5 days and had 3 weeks of recovery. It freaked me out cause he was in the ICU for 3 days then and the doctor said when I asked if he would be ok he said "honestly it could go either way." I remember thinking that was one of the scariest things I've heard.

January 27th he woke up with similar pain just starting and thought it was just something off and went to work. I was sitting in church when he called and I knew before even talking to him. So I told him I would get someone for the kids and to meet me at the hospital. That night he went from bad to way way worse in a matter of hours. His triglyceride level this time was 9,000. We knew it was bad.

The next early morning he was in the ICU and as the day went on he just seemed to be getting worse. This time we found out he had pancreatitis and ketoacidosis. By Tuesday morning we had all the family flown in. We were told that Josh's chance of survival was less than 2%. Tuesday morning I called the ICU at about 6am after not being able to sleep and having a bad feeling. The nurse told me that Josh was going into what we call total system failure, his temperature had been 105 for 4 hours and his kidneys were shutting down. She said I needed to get right in. I just began screaming. My poor mother in law and sister in law. I woke them up and they were scared to death but all I could do was scream. We all rushed in and Josh looked really really bad. At this point even one of Josh's aunts from Australia was flying in.

Tuesday night we were put on multiple temple lists, had everyone praying, put on prayer lists at many different churches. (So thankful) Our bishop came to the hospital and I told him how bad it was. He's amazing, he went to the church where the boys were playing a basketball game and they all prayed. Then that night they sent out a emergency fast email to everyone in the ward. We had people going to the temples all over including Hawaii. This all happened Wednesday morning when Josh's kidneys were still failing. So Wednesday night he started turning back around and coming back to us. It was so incredible. He continued to be in the ICU for the next 4 days. He had one of the doctors treating him come in and see him and said "I just wanted to see the medical marvel." The doctors couldn't believe how he turned around.

Over the next week he was starting to get better and then that just stopped. He started to have more pain and fevers came back. So they did a cat scan and found that he has a pseudocyst on his pancreas. They said they couldn't do anything for a few weeks and sent him home on Friday. He was going to have routine cat scans and see if they started to go away on their own. So Friday night he did not sleep. He couldn't get comfortable and was in more pain then I have EVER seen him in in ten years. We both knew something wasn't right. So Saturday morning we loaded up the suitcase and headed down to Murray to one of the best hospitals ever. They did another cat scan even though it had already been done just the Wednesday before. They told a different story instead of having one large pseudocyst he had two large ones and some smaller ones around the pancreas and on it. They said his pancreas really looks bad and have had multiple people involved in his treatment. It kind of reminds me of a episode of house in that he has a room of doctor's determining the best treatment method. It gives me some comfort. After considering options they decided they can not allow him to eat. His pancreas needs to rest and they need to bypass it. So the first two days they put a tube down his nose and throat into his stomach. Considering he needs a feeding tube for 5 weeks it was not a option to have that the whole time. So yesterday they surgically put a tube in through his stomach to bypass his pancreas. They plan on sending him home in the next couple days. We will have a home health nurse come and help a couple times and then me and Josh will be able to do his feeding and administer everything ourselves.

The next few weeks he'll have a cat scan to determine when the pseudocysts have developed enough and everything else has calmed down enough for surgery. We will also find out what kind of surgery he will have if they are draining or actually cutting damage out. The surgery is risky but it's necessary. Without it he could develop a infection especially sepsis. It is going to be quite a journey for him and he can have this come back at any time because it is genetic but we are praying that they will be better at getting everything under control this time and he won't have another experience like this.

We want everyone to know we appreciate the calls, prayers, messages, meals, offer to help, babysitting, donations, support etc. SO MUCH!! Josh and I are so grateful for the people we have around us. We are lucky to have such amazing family. I don't know what we would do without our parents. They have all been our rock through this. They've been amazing. We love you Mom's and Dad's so much!! His family has been here non stop helping taking care of him and even his aunt from Australia flew in for 2 weeks and helped with everything from taking care of Josh to the kids to the house for me. Our parents are amazing. Josh's have been taking care of him. Mine have been taking care of my kids. My extended family has been right there for us too. My Grandpa Cliff is one amazing Grandpa. Our families from all over the world have been frequently checking in. Our friends from all over too as far as Hawaii. Don't know what we would do without all of you! Thank you for everything. We love each and every one of you. We can't wait to be the ones helping others rather than needing help. But we appreciate the willingness to help us.


Love you all.