Updating!

So I haven't really given a good update on here in a long time.

Our family went on vacation to Utah and California for the majority of July. It was a lot of fun. We camped at Mt. Shasta, and while there we had no electricity. It was pretty fun. We would drive to the top of the mountains to get snow and use that to keep food in the coolers cold and fresh. The creek next to where we set up camp was our water source. We boiled it and used that for everything. We climbed a few mountains, swam in a lake at the top of one, and hiked through an ice cave. Now, I've been in many caves before with tour guides and hand rails, and at some point they turn off the lights for the tourists to experience total darkness. Well, this cave wasn't a hand-railed hike with a trained tour guide. We made our own paths, climbing across slippery ice and through tunnels made by air bubbles in lava that spilled centuries ago. Using merely ropes and each other as ways to climb up and down, it really was an adventure.

Back in Utah, we went ATVing in the mountains surrounding the Springville/Mapleton area, tubing down the Provo River, and hung out with our family there.

All in all it really was a memorable trip. It was also our last trip as a whole family across country, seeing as Molly gets married in January and won't be accompanying us on these road trips any more.

On a more personal note, my health started declining again while on the trip. My appetite started diminishing on the last full day of camp. Since then, long story short, my appetite is just about gone, I'm in a lot of constant pain and I've lost about 10 lbs in less than a month. I see my GI on Wednesday. I just recently changed to an adult GI due to our insurance not covering me to go to Iowa City to see the pediatrics, since I'm now 18. It's really a relief not to have to travel 100 miles to get tests done. We also get a much warmer and better feeling with this doctor than we did in Iowa City. He really wants to know us and deal with this as a team, not just doctor and patient. I really really like that. :)

So with this doctors visit I'm hoping that if he decides to run some tests on me that they'll at least show something that we can work with. My worst fear with this disease isn't that something will go terribly wrong, but that I'll be in agony and nothing will be found for the cause. It's happened before and I never want it to happen again. Being sick and in pain, now knowing what your body is doing to you and doctors not being able to tell you is, to me, the scariest thing that can happen. Fortunately, I tend to doubt that will be the case this time. :) I'll update again when I find things out.