Thanksgiving Point with Papa and Grandma

Easter Egg throw - Who can get closest to the fence without breaking their egg.

No Easter pictures of Brit - he was out of town at a baseball tournament.

Brit earned his eagle

Morgan Track

Morgan is still trying to run with POTS. She ended the indoor season placing 3rd
at the indoor state championships in the 400m.

Morgan has decided she will keep racing the 400m but is getting more and more tired doing that one lap. Her heart rate is now up to 246 beats per minute after running the 400m. She still throws up at practices but will not quit. She will run the 200m and has just decided a couple days ago that she wants to run the 100m but that means she has to be in blocks. For the last two days she has been working with her coach on blocking. It is so hard for her to be with her head down and then shoot upwards, this makes her heart rate jump and she gets lightheaded. Tomorrow will be her first time doing the 100m in blocks and we are nervous for her. Above is her practicing the blocks.

Brit - 7th grade track

400m race won it in 63 seconds

Brit at the start line of the 800m. There was a lot of pushing going on if you can't tell.

Brit took 3rd in the 800m in 2:38.

I told Brit he should try doing track. He went a few weeks ago and the coach had the distance run 7 miles and Brit hadn't been running at all. Needless to say, Brit did not like running he was so sore after 7 miles he could barely walk the next day. Brit wanted to quit but I suggested he try the sprints. He has trained a couple weeks and today had his second track meet. He ran the 400m and the 800m. Tomorrow Brit will play his first baseball game of the season.

Morgan - Indoor Track

So you all know Morgan is a fighter and is determined not to let POTS make her stop running even though her body is so tired, nauseated, and her heart races all the time. Last week in practice her heart rate was 240 beats per minute normal range would be around 150 beats per minute after a hard workout. The doctor said she will pass out on the track before she has a heart attack. She can't run distance at all because she is too tired but she is working on short distances.
Saturday, we went to her first race of the indoor track season which was at BYU. She signed up to run the 400m and 200m. There were 10 heats of the 400m and 12 heats for the 200m. She was in the last heat of each race. I was so scared for her I was shaking wondering if she could get around the track without collasping. She made it around barely you could see her strength was gone. She placed fifth in the 400m and fourth in the 200m. The girls who beat her were all girls she had beat last year in track. We were thrilled with how she did, but it is hard to know where she has been.

Below are two of Morgan's teammates.

Below Morgan is running the 200m.

Morgan on the stand for the 200m

Morgan on the stand for the 200m

Christmas 2011

Christmas Eve at Grandmas

Christmas Eve program

Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas Morning

Brit - National Junior Honor Society Induction

Brit was accepted in the National Junior Honor Society. He was voted President-Elect and was asked to speak at the induction ceremony. Above are a couple pics taken from our phone. They are not the best.

Morgan Cross Country Banquet

Morgan had a rough cross country season being so sick throwing up several times at each practice. Her Aunt Lindsey was helping coach and sometimes it was so hard for Lindsey to hear Morgan behind her throwing up. Morgan had to quit running right before region when the doctor was going to have an endoscopy done. Trying to find out what is wrong with Morgan has been so hard. After many doctors appointments, tests of every kind, the doctor thinks she has POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.

This an increase in heart rate from the supine to upright position of more than 30 beats per minute or to a heart rate greater than 120 beats per minute within 12 minutes of head-up tilt. This tachycardic response is sometimes accompanied by a decrease in blood pressure and a wide variety of symptoms. Low blood pressure of any kind may cause the following: lightheadiness, dizziness, exercise intolerance, fainting, excessive thirst, fatigue, cold extremities, abdominal pain, bloating, vomiting, brain fog. Morgan has all of these symptoms. It affects all aspects of your body. Morgan is still undergoing testing. We just had a heart monitor test done and a brain MRI. Doctors are trying to rule out that she might have something else on tops of POTS. POTS is not curable but can be treated. There are so many things affected by POTS, it is by trial and error trying to get feeling better. Morgan was told if she can tolerate a little bit of exercise it would be good. To just jog 10 minutes her heart rate is 216-225 which is very scary. She is so determined she can run track but I am not sure if that is even possible.
Morgan had a cross country banquet and her Aunt Lindsey(Asst. Coach) was asked to present an award to Morgan. It was the Spirit Award. Here is how Lindsey introduced it, "This next award goes to someone who has shown an unconquerable spirit through this cross country season. For the past year she has battled everything from mono to low iron to stress fractures, and most recently underwent surgery for a hernia. With her body trying to give up, her spirit kept her going. She pushed through practices and meets, refusing to give in. When we told her she could stop, she fought harder. As the final meets of the season came, her body finally gave out, and with no other choice, she put her dreams on hold. The spirit of courage she displayed, even in the face of devastating trials, is why we are giving her this award tonight." This brings tears to my eyes everytime I think about what she has gone through and still going through. Thanks to everyone for their prayers on her behalf. Above are a few pictures from the banquet.

Triple Crown Baseball Tournament at the Field of Dreams in Las Vegas, NV

Here are a few pics that Kelly took at the field they played on in Las Vegas. It was very cool. Below are the boys warming up.

Coaches

Morgan - Homecoming Dance

Nash's baby blessing at the luncheon afterwards.

Summer pics now that summer is over!!

Barbeque

Baseball game up camping

Birthday party!

Morgan Running?

Just as an update after six weeks of not running, Morgan's stress fractures healed and she was able to start running. She started off slow and when she would pick up the pace she would get nauseated and throw up. We realized that at the State meet she didn't have the flu at all. Something was not right with her body. This happened everytime she ran, she was getting very sick. If we had her run on a empty stomach she would still dry heave. I took her back in to the doctor after talking to a friend of my mom's who is a doctor. He said to check her iron again. I took her back in and asked again for an iron test and it all came back normal. I found out that you have to ask for a ferratin iron test to really check her iron. Her iron is at a 5 which is so below normal we are lucky Morgan is still here and didn't collapse or have a heart attack on a run. That explains why back in March she would complain of being sick. We found out that your injuries triple when your iron gets to a 12 let alone a 5 explaining why we got stress fractures this last season. I just wish a doctor would have figured that out a long time ago and done the correct iron test when I asked for it. Morgan is now going to take some more time off to get her iron levels back up and hopefully get her body back on track and she didn't do any permanent damage to her body.

Cousins at Thanksgiving Point

Brit carrying Morgan for a minute through a part of Thanksgiving Point. As you can see Morgan has a boot on her leg. She has stress fractures in both legs and was told to switch the boot to whatever leg is hurting the most. The doctor said back in April she had chin splints but with six weeks left in the season the doctor thought if we stretched, massaged and iced everyday we could make it through state. We made it but after taking two weeks off after state the legs were still hurting so we went back to the doctor and did xrays to find out they were stress fractures. Morgan is anxiously waiting for them to heal so she can start the cross country season. Morgan had a good track season even with the chin splints. She earned the top sprinter trophy, the top performer trophy and the most points scored trophy. For those of you that don't know Morgan went to state in track in four events which is the most you can do. Her times going in were great. On the morning of state the mile was first at 8am. We showed up and she started the mile. The first lap she looked great, the second lap she dropped back some and she was coughing with her hand to her mouth. Going into the third lap she was throwing up - several times. She had to pull out and not run the rest of her races since she had the flu. She was heart broken, but I guess that is life. For a girl that just wants to run she has her share of challenges.

The boys cousins flexing their stuff.