February 5, 2025

 Well, here we go again... I've really been thinking a lot about the "good old days" of blogging and decided that it was a big part of my life. A big, AMAZING, incredible part of my life, and I want it back. 

It's just hard when your kids are old enough that they need privacy and space to be their own people and not have their cute/fun/awkward/painful growing-up bits plastered online. I've always tried to be really mindful of respecting their privacy when it comes to these things. I would die of mortification if my teenage years were shared publicly with who knows who. 

At any rate, they're mostly adults now doing adult things like "go to college" and "work full-time". It's absolutely bananas to realize that two of my kids are older than I was when I got married. (Terribly young, before my brain was fully developed and all that.)

I also realize that I never finished my sepsis story and the TL:DR version is this: I got sepsis. It was bad. I barely survived and lived in the hospital for 4ish weeks and didn't eat solid food for MONTHS. And now I'm mostly better but have some permanent damage that we'll have to get in to at a later date because I need to say this instead. 

What. 

In. 

The. 

Actual. 

Fuck. 

It is February 5, 2025, and we are living in a dystopian nightmare. There are so many things happening so fast it is making my head spin. A gross convicted felon managed to bamboozle people into letting him back into office. As President. Of the United States. So far he's set the country back a few decades or so. And it is actively harming my family. I feel like a literal death sentence has been issued for me and my kids, and I am so, so disappointed in humanity. I am embarrassed to be an American right now. 

And I keep hearing feedback that tells me I'm taking things too personally. I mean, on election day, and the days immediately after, I was physically sick. I think because I have worked so closely and deeply in the media, specifically within the social media hemisphere, that I failed to realize just how many people in my life are digitally illiterate. My own family (not my progeny, but my siblings and cousins and such) does not know how to differentiate between legitimate media sources and counterfeit sites. They can't spot deep fakes and don't know the tell tale signs of AI generated content. It's maddening. And painful. And it hurts too much to engage. 

My whole life, I have studied people and their behaviors, closely. And I always, always, always have given many, many chances to certain people in my sphere. But they have never given me the same grace and I'm over it. I'm done being the bigger person and will proudly be the black sheep. ( I mean, it's the role they love to force on me anyways, right?) 

It's just crazy. The world is nuts. 

Anyhow, I have so many thoughts rambling along in my head and I just need to start getting them out to begin to process. Just wait until you hear my thoughts about polygamy being viewed only in a binary sense and how actually it would never REALLY work unless you started to view it through the lens of the queer experience. It's WILD these thoughts I have. 

Oh, and we moved out of Utah and we're a little mad about that. We live in Arizona now

And I'm getting my Master Gardener certifications and edible native permaculture certification and I am ALSO thinking about maybe really diving into restorative agro-forestry. But it's just a glimmer of a thought right now.

I can feel that my brain has chilled out, so I may be able to go to sleep now. This'll be great because I have to get up bright and early for work. (I am working as a therapist for children with Autism at an early-intervention clinic. It's fun.)

The end. Didn't you learn so many fun new things about me today? 

Summer of Sepsis, part 1

 I am stuck in a pain cycle right now and it is KILLER. My meds aren't touching it and I've tried some alternative meds and nothing. It sucks because I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't work. I mean, I'm sort of doing those things, but not very successfully. It's absolutely maddening. 

So of course I'm going to hop onto ye olde' blog and complain. OF COURSE I AM. 

In other news, I guess it's as good a time as any to talk about my Summer of Sepsis. Yes, that is what I'm calling it for the rest of my life, because it was a BIG HUGE DEAL and is still affecting my health. I have permanent damage to my lungs, spleen, liver, and kidneys. It's also why I'm currently stuck in a pain cycle. LIFE IS SO SUPER DUPER FUN. On to the story... 

------

On June 15th, I was scheduled for a surgical repair of my guts. There was about an inch of my esophagus that needed to be removed, where it meets the stomach, due to prolonged damage from a number of factors. I also had some growths in my intestines that needed to be removed. 

The surgery is very safe, though intense, and required quite a bit of pre-op preparations which were followed to the letter. 

However, we are talking about ME, and my tendency to be medically *ExTrA* did not disappoint. 

The first thing the surgeons noticed was an overabundance of scarring which was essentially locking my organs in place. My liver, spleen, and left lung were the most damaged. 

It was also noted that a previous surgery was done in a manner not commonly practiced anymore. Again, not wrong, but not ideal. 

My surgeons cleaned up as much damage as possible, made some corrections, then continued with their original mission. The surgery was successful and I went to recovery, where I stayed an extra night due to the complications. I was discharged, with oxygen orders, after an uneventful 48 hours. 

At home, on Saturday the 18th, I started feeling unwell. I figured it was due to the typical after-surgery care... when the "good drugs" are officially out of your system and you are adjusting to the discomfort of the healing process. 

I was ALSO being monitored remotely via medical devices and apps, which I will say right now were a godsend and literally saved my life. The app started to ping my surgeon because my pulse rate and blood pressure were wildly varied. Then I started having difficulty breathing, despite being on oxygen.

Saturday was bad, but Sunday was worse. 

I read through all my patient materials again and again. I figured I was having gas pains. Or maybe I was drinking my water too quickly and swallowing too much air. Maybe I wasn't drinking enough and was dehydrated. I was doing my best to troubleshoot the situation. Then my left shoulder exploded. 

 A sharp, sudden pain burst behind my left breast and traveled down my side and across my belly. I screamed in pain and fell to my knees. I started to cry and it took Troy, Blayne, and Taylor to get me into bed. I took as many pain meds as I could and started eating Gas-X chewables like they were candy. 

The shoulder explosion began to repeat on loop and Sunday night was spent in agony. 

On Monday morning, I called the surgeon to request more pain meds. The nurse I spoke with was kind, but firm, that no more prescription pain meds would be called in. (tangent 1: You see, in a NORMAL world, I 100% agree with the nurse. But in a CAROLINE world, where a person has an extremely high pain and drug tolerance, I do not agree with the nurse.) I tried to convey my issues, but it is hard to talk when you are in pain, on drugs, and exhausted. The phone call ended and I lay in my bed wondering if a trip to the ER would be dramatic or not.  (tangent 2: when you have a decades-long history of being written off by doctors as "dramatic" you will for the rest of your life wonder if you are actually feeling what you are feeling.)

As I was lying in bed, feeling like death, a phone call came in. It was another nurse from the surgeon's office. She had pulled my monitors and based on the information, they wanted me to head to the Emergency Room since I was having trouble breathing. 

Permission was all I needed. 

However, I was at home with Taylor and Blayne, my two non-driver people and there was no way I could drive myself because I was on oxygen and could barely stand upright with the help of my walker and a person. So I called Daniel and Thaddeus, who were both working at McDonald's, and said "I need one of you to drive me to the ER. Right. Now." There was a bit of a kerfuffle in the background, but soon enough, Daniel was back at the house and helped me get into the car. 

He raced me to the ER, and dropped me and Taylor off, before heading back to work. I hobbled into the emergency room, bent over in pain, and told them I had had surgery at this location, five days ago, and I can't breathe and my doctor said to come in. 

I must have looked terrible because I was immediately taken back to a room for further examination. Things started to get a little hazy here because I was placed on a morphine drip. Labs were drawn and I had a CT scan. I must have dozed off a bit, because I remember being woken by a nurse who was telling me they were going to take me back for surgery NOW. 

And I said to him, "I'm so happy there's something wrong." 

And he said, "Yes, there is something very, very wrong. You should have come in sooner."

And that is the last thing I remember. Lying in a bed, telling a guy I was happy there was something wrong with me, with Taylor sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, wide-eyed and scared. 

Elder Thaddeus Bingham

June 8, 2022 

• Thaddeus is called to serve in the Oklahoma, Oklahoma City mission, English-speaking. 

June/July/August 2022

• Mission preparations are in full force. Suit fittings. Temple clothes. Luggage. Plus a million other things that you need to do to prepare someone to leave for two years. 

August 21, 2022 

• Thaddeus is ordained an Elder and receives the Melchezidek priesthood. 

August 28, 2022 

• Thaddeus has his missionary farewell in Layton, Utah. 
• Thaddeus receives his temple recommend.
• Open house to celebrate Thaddeus and wish him luck on his mission

August 30, 2022

• Thaddeus receives his endowment in the Bountiful, Utah temple. His Ellsworth grandparents were able to come to Utah and go through the temple with him. 

September 4, 2022

• Thaddeus is in an ATV accident. Has hairline fracture to the clavicle and cracked ribs, A.C. joint separation, and pulmonary contusion. Has to wear a sling and is ordered to take it easy.
  

September 11, 2022

• Thaddeus is set apart as a Missionary

September 12, 2022

• Due to coronavirus protocols, the Missionary Training Center experience begins at home

September 21, 2022

• Thaddeus enters the Provo, Utah MTC. 

October 4, 2022

• Thaddeus is officially in Oklahoma.