Everything Comes in 3s

Water

Last Sunday (2/17/13) we woke up to a cold house. We went to the thermostat to turn up the heat, but the heat never turned on. Travis went downstairs to see what was going on and found a puddle of water coming out of the furnace room. A hose coming off the hot water heater had a small hole in it that was shooting water everywhere. We shut off the water and started to mop up the carpet around the entry to the door.

Since church was starting, we decided to go to church to see if anyone in the ward was familiar with water heaters and furnaces and could give us a hand. The hose from the water heater was an easy fix; however the furnace seemed to have gotten water in it. The next day a repair man came in to look at the furnace and the good news was the water missed all the vital components and it was basically just a little water that needed to be removed from some areas.

All in all it turned out better than it initially looked. Much of the carpet got wet, meaning we needed to move all of our storage then pull up the carpet. You can see in the pictures the large piles of our stuff as well as the carpet being lifted up and the fans going to work. Both the water heater and furnace could have been a lot worse than they were. We got lucky we found the problem so quickly and were able to salvage everything/get stuff repaired. Our ward was very nice to us throughout the whole process.

Car

As Emily was driving to work, her car slipped on the freshly fallen snow and bumped into the curb. There was a fairly long curve in the road and once you start sliding it is tough to get stopped. She ended up banging off the curb like a bumper car. The remainder of the drive was a little bumpy and Emily was required to hold the steering wheel at an angle to keep the car going in the correct direction. We were able to meet with a mechanic the same day and found that we had luckily not done any damage to the axel. The wheel will need to be replaced, but it could have been much worse than it was.

While we are waiting for the part to be ordered, we borrowed a car from Emily’s parents. Having family close to help out is great when you’re in a bind. It has been nice to have a car that we feel safe driving, because the wheel shakes crazy while driving our car. Hopefully when we take it in next week all goes well with the repair.

CMV

Recently we found out that Emily has been exposed to CMV. Cytomegalovirus is a fairly common virus that often has no noticeable symptoms. However, there seems to be a correlation between birth defects in women who get CMV in the early months of their pregnancy. Only about 8% of babies whose mothers have CMV are actually affected, but there is still a possibility. A study is being done to assess whether or not some type of medication will help prevent further cases of birth defects.

Emily was invited to be part of the study, which we have decided to accept. At first we were rather hesitant, yet after talking with our doctor and some specialist we felt good about it. In the end, it was either sit and do nothing, or try something that could potentially help us and further generations. About once a month she will go down to the University of Utah Hospital to be hooked up to an IV for a few hours. The first time she went down was last week and she was there for over 10 hours. It was a long day. Future visits shouldn’t be near as long.