the joys of (not) having a gall bladder

a picture of me back when i had a gall bladder (i.e. every day of my life up until july 23rd)

caleb's head is resting right about where my gall bladder used to be. awww. 

I'm still in a drug-induced haze, so we'll see how this blog even turns out. Here's the diet coke version (heh, I picked that up from my Spanish professor. But not anything Spanish-related...)

Starting last Monday, the 16th, I was going about my regular bidnez (work, exercise, eat, sleep, read, shower, blah blah). I had just eaten a loverly dinner of chicken and rice with broccoli. Normally I don't go into that much detail but it's important that you know what my last meal was before all this nonsense went down. Right in the middle of FHE, I felt a strange pain in my side, like I was being stabbed. Ugh! I've had weird stomach problems for who knows how long, but had never felt anything like this. I've been off of gluten, dairy, sugar, you know, the works. Nothing helped. My body refused to cooperate. I became a food snob, went on stupid diets, worked out like a crazy person. And yet, not too much changed.

So back to this epic stomachache. I took some medication and tried to lay down so the pain would leave, because I figured it was just a dumb stomachache. But it got worse, and then I couldn't breathe. What the junk?! This was not a regular stomachache. I asked my dad for a blessing, after which I promptly threw up three times. Awesome. I figured that would be all. Just to be safe, I called in sick the next day. For the next few days I didn't eat much besides saltines, applesauce, apple juice. Just fyi, saltines aren't food. They are simply the color beige plus a little salt on top. Not. Food. So of course I was starving, but everything else made my stomach hurt like hades.

On Friday morning, I was at work for one hour and started to feel pukey again. "I knew I shouldn't have eaten that toast!" Word to my homefries: if a piece of toast is upsetting your stomach, you've got problems.  I couldn't sit without being in excruciating pain. Guess what, I sit all day long at work. So I decided to go home yet again and see if I could sleep it off. The pain steadily got worse. We went to urgent care, and the doctor there said I wasn't showing any "classic symptoms" for any one thing. Earlier in the week I had googled my symptoms and had a hunch it was something to do with my gall bladder. He told me it might be that but my blood test wouldn't come back 'til Monday. I took some more medicine and went to sleep. Then when I woke up I did a really dumb thing and ate some food, which induced yet another painful episode.

Cue some more throwing up, more pain, and prayers that it would just be over. When the doctor asks you what your pain is on a scale from 1-10, and you say "ten," that's a sign...to go to the hospital. I didn't know this. I thought I could endure it, but Saturday was the straw that broke this redheaded camel's back (whoa, weird image, am I right?). When I got to the E.R., I was in a weird state. I was in so much pain that it was almost like an out of body experience...I can't really explain it, but I knew I was in trouble. They asked me my pain level, and I think I mumbled "eight," but I didn't want them panicking on me. Hello, McFrenzy, this is the E.R. People get paid to go into panic mode here. Again, the pain was distorting everything.

I remember them putting me on a hospital bed and sticking me with an I.V. Usually I don't like getting poked with needles but by this point it felt like I was getting hugged by a Care Bear compared to the pain in my stomach. Then the most glorious thing ever happened! They gave me pain medication (apparently ten times stronger than morphine, boo-ya). I don't condone drugs, people, but after the pain I'd experienced, it was celestial. Ok, maybe I shouldn't compare pain medication to the celestial kingdom...but GUYS. I will always remember that moment when the pain went away. I know I did embarrassing things and I know I was reduced to a cavewoman (in terms of my speech), but I couldn't feel the pain anymore! YESSS!

For the next few days, I sat in my hospital bed and waited patiently for the doctor to say they would take out my gall bladder, which they did! On Monday morning they told me I was going in for surgery. The last thing I remember was them saying, "Okay, we're going to give you some Valium first..." which made me dizzy, but not totally asleep, and then they said, "We're putting this oxygen mask on your face, okay?" BAM. Lights out.

Other things to note: hospital gowns are never, ever flattering on anybody; chicken broth can be the best meal in the world when you haven't eaten for three days; popsicles are great for sore throats; the cooking channel and the food network are sadistic things to watch when you can't eat anything; you shouldn't invite your friends to come visit you because they'll laugh at everything you do (drugs=bad); if you start to feel any pain the nurse will inject you with that 10x stronger than morphine stuff (drugs=good); scars can be cool; people are actually very good; Priesthood blessings are the bee's knees; God really does answer your prayers but it's His timing that counts; showering with an I.V. is awkward; drugs make your dreams even more psycho; remote-controlled beds are overrated; fireworks are only fun if you can see them, otherwise they are really scary; getting an ultrasound when you're heavily medicated is like being in the Willy Wonka movie from the 60's.

Thus concludes the life of my crazy gall bladder. May you rest in peace.

this better be hormones

In the past week I have found myself on the verge of tears just a few times, but I'm not even sure why. Today in Old Testament we were sitting there talking about the 2nd coming and all of sudden and I had to hold back a sob. A sob, people!! I don't sob! Ugh. Well on Monday the same thing happened, in the same class, because something the teacher said made me think of a dream I had a little while ago, which also made me want to cry right then. And I nearly did. I just hafta talk myself out of it...

"Kenz...c'mon...you are NOT gonna cry in front of all these people. Keep it together, man!"

Sometimes the urge will come while I'm walking to class and I see the picnic table I once did a ninja-jump off of my freshman year. Because I remember how young and inexperienced I was then, and I remember how Courtney was with me, and I think about how I'm going to leave this place soon...and...and...I just get kinda melancholy. Hence the tears.

Or other times I'll be sitting in church looking around at all of the people I know and wondering what will happen with their lives after we all leave...and I think about what's going to happen to me, and when I realize I don't know, I want to cry.

Then there's those moments when I am sitting in devotional and the speaker says something that I know, I know, God probably told him to put in his talk just for me, and I want to cry right then but not in front of the whole student body! Honestly....my tear ducts have no pride.

The worst, and by that I mean the most embarrassing, is when I walk by the many construction sites and I see the Mexicans working...and that gets me thinking about Mexico...and by that point I can't even stop. I just have to use my scarf as a mask so no one will see my face, crying.

If this isn't hormones, there's only one explanation: I have Anderson blood running through my veins.

my leg looks like a purple pineapple

(have you ever noticed how beauteous the sky is?)

mom, don't be alarmed if a rather grotesque picture of my back surfaces on facebook. the mexican pharmacist gave me some gross looking cream which is currently staining my pillow a sick yellow color.

if you would like to know why i have the worst sunburn of my life, stay tuned to this blog for more, later in the week when i can't feel a pulse in my thigh.

for now, i am thinking of other stuff. it's pretty heavy.

The challenges and trials God gives us are hard for me to understand sometimes. I'm the kind of person that needs reasons for trials. Does that make sense? If I can look at a hill during a race and say to myself, "Ok, this hill is here so that when I get to the top I am stronger and feel better about myself," then I can climb over it. Otherwise, the trial frustrates me, because I don't know why I should climb up the hill. What's at the top? God knows me better than I know myself, so He must know that I find this troubling. That's why He keeps challenging me with things I don't quite understand. I'll take the compliment.

Since being in Mexico, I have started to notice how little people have, and yet it is everything to them. They don't know what it's like to have a dryer, they just hang their clothes out. It's not a big deal. They don't know what it's like to have nice roads without bumps or potholes everywhere. It's just a road, right? They work very hard to make something perfect and beautiful with their hands, and then they try even harder to sell it for 10 pesos (less than $1 USD). It amazes me how differently people live in our world.

This weekend we drove through lots of little villages where people lived in grass huts, shacks, or planks of wood hammered together with some flimsy metal sheets on top. Little kids played soccer barefoot in their tattered clothes with their dogs. Old women carried huge loads on their backs. I imagined what else they were carrying, tried to see it in their faces.

It's been a month since I moved to this beautiful place. It feels like home now. I miss a lot of things about America, but I have no doubt I'm supposed to be here. It feels natural now. When I go back to the U.S., I hope I don't forget this feeling of immense gratitude and awe for everything I've been blessed with.

If you ever want some serious perspective, visit a third world country for awhile.

I know I share this scripture a lot, but it says what I am trying to say so perfectly:

"Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God." -Ether 12:24-

and one of my favorites from Ezra Taft Benson:

“The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of the people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”

did you know He is your friend?

tired in so many ways

...brace yourselves, folks, this one is gonna be deep. And long.

Where do I even start? Last night at 7-ish I felt a lot different than I do now. It may or may not have to do with the fact that I got about 4 hours of sleep last night. And I woke up at 3am sweating like crazy, with my arm bent in some crazy position (it kinda hurts to un-bend those little buggers).

And my brain would not stop going, and going, and going.

The night before, this unsettling feeling would not go away. I laid in bed and tried to sleep, but my rumbling tummy+all of the worries floating around in my head would not let me.

So I went to the kitchen, ate a leetle bowl of grape nuts (fiber at midnight, not the best idea, people) and then made a to-do list for the rest of the week. Erp. It's going to be quite stressful, I think. My heart rate might have gone up just looking at it.

And then there's the other things going on in my life, which, quite frankly, just make me want to CRY. That's right, McKenzie, the self-proclaimed "heartless loser," wants to cry. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, usually there's a good reason.

Yesterday I read a blog which put all of my feelings into the exact words I needed. As I sat in the library reading them, I thought to myself, "Oh, that's what's happening to me." The good part is that this girl had a happy ending, so I should too, right? The trick is being patient while I actively wait for that happy ending.

(Please check out her blog posts here, here, and here--this last one is seriously, almost word-for-word, what I would have written.)

FYI: actively waiting for something you really want that is a really good thing is really hard. Really.

I am having a hard time learning this lesson. But clearly, God wants me to learn it because He knows that 1, I can handle it and 2, if I endure it well I will grow even more and be blessed in ways I can't even imagine.

I just wish sometimes that I didn't feel so far from myself. You know? I just want to be me, and be loved for being me, and not have to feel silly for being myself because of what other people do or don't do. Wow, sorry for that awful run-on sentence. I know this probably isn't making sense...but I just want to say this so I feel slightly better.

Last night, I realized something which felt kind of like a curveball. The kind that gives you a black eye. Black eyes are really un-attractive, I think. They make your eye all droopy and funky and, uh, not to mention blackish-purplish. Not cute. Sorry, tangent.

So this curveball, it really threw me. And it's not the first one I've gotten this semester...in fact, it's not the first one I've gotten this year. I'm starting to think that our whole lives are made up of curveballs which some refer to as "happy accidents" or "tender mercies" or, even more simply, "adversity."

Whenever I start to feel the waves of discouragement creeping up onto my shore, I get a little bit of anxiety. So I go to my knees, because that's where I feel strongest. That's where I feel most like myself, most loved, and most protected. I know that I can be healed that way. The trick is, like Neal A. Maxwell said, "to not shrink."

Today, on this third day of December, I may have shrunken a little bit, but I have that hope Ether talked about in Ether 12:4. I know that even though sometimes our efforts seem worthless, they will be worth it later.

Even though I can't see it now. I'm not a mind-reader, or a fortune-teller, or a time-machine builder. Thank goodness, otherwise my future might be ruined.

The hardest part is not knowing, and yet I have 24/7/365 access to someone who does know, and I'm going to take His hand and let Him lead me wherever He wants me to go.

If that means to Mexico for 4 months, where I don't know anybody and I'm not even sure why I'm going, then I'll go.

If that means saying goodbye to my best friend for 18 months, then I'll do it.

If that means giving up on something which I really thought was a possibility for something even better, then I'll give it up.

"But if by a still, small voice he calls, to paths that I do not know, I'll answer dear Lord, with my hand in thine, I'll go where you want me to go."