Some Things....

You just have to blog about.  A word of warning: if you have stumbled across this page without knowing me, or you don't feel you need to know all the intimate details that make up my life, please feel free to check out any of my other posts, but this one is going to get quite a bit personal.

You may not know, but Kayla and I have been trying to get Brenna a sibling for about a year now.  The major roadblock has been that the doctor we have here is unwilling to provide us the shot we took last time to get pregnant for several reasons which I don't have the time or desire to get into at the present time.  Suffice to say that I had the most awkward and unusual experience of my short life this past Thursday.  Why has it taken so long to blog about this experience, you say?  I think once I explain this visit in its entirety, you'll see why.  So what I went to see a urologist in San Antonio (because we are in the smack dab middle of the back woods here and don't have anything near that type of doctor here) for a general analysis to see if something with my "boys" might be the cause of why we have been unable to this point to get pregnant.

So once I arrive in at this office and hand in my insurance information to the front person and then ask about going to the restroom because I've been on the road for an hour and a half, and they inform me that they will need a "sample" and might as well get it while I was in there rather than wait for the doctor to see me. That enough should have been enough to send this right up to the top of the awkward doctor visit list, but apparently they were just getting started.  Did you know they actually have instructions in these bathrooms on how to pee into a cup?  Did you know there are diagrams?  At this point the ladies reading this are saying, "well yeah!", but I'm guessing my fellas are as surprised as I was.  

So I get called back and after a few minutes of waiting I meet with the doctor who after some pleasantries tells me to please "drop your trousers and let's have a look."  Now for some of you this might be a part of your normal everyday routine, but for me that was the continuation of the strangeness, but I think the weirdest part was either he was so detached or I was that it really felt like it was myself checking things out in the basement.  How bizarre is that? 

 

Anyway, after the initial exam he informs me that he wants to take some blood samples and orders a testicular ultrasound.  Just in case you were wondering, not nearly as interesting and exciting as an ultrasound when there is a baby involved.  The tech comes into the room to draw my blood and two things had me a little concerned: first-they drew a lot of blood, enough to make me feel a little woozy, and second was the way they wrapped my arm up once the blood was out.  Apparently men are too macho to earn a band-aid, we're cool enough for neon gauze like the kind pictured to the left (mine was neon green), and she wrapped it with so much and so tightly that if I had been asked to play my instrument at that point in time, I wouldn't have been able to!  

So up next was the ultrasound.  I go into this room where yet another guy tells me to drop my pants (an all-time high for men telling me to take my pants off), and he informs me that my ultrasound will be "audited" by a female tech who is learning how to take the ultrasound.  They proceed to begin the procedure like I'm not in the room, but fortunately for you my ears still worked and I found out that they have to use really warm KY jelly so that the "boys" don't shrivel up and they can take good pictures, they also use A LOT of the stuff for some reason that was not explained.  They then take pictures of my guys from all different angles occasionally giving me a heart attack by saying  comforting things like "oh, that's interesting...", and "do you see that right there?", and my personal favorite: "Huh!"  The entire time I have two thoughts going through my head: 1) no wonder we haven't been contacted by other intelligent life, because honestly, what intelligent life would do this to one another, and 2) Please don't let Jesus come back with my fellas hanging out for all the world to see, I just think when I meet my Creator I would like to be wearing pants in some form or fashion.  Anyway, they finish up the exam and tell me everything looks fine, but they would like to see me for a semen analysis in a few weeks followed by a follow up exam the week after.  So, as uncomfortable as this may have been to read, it's kind of like therapy for me and really what is a blog if not therapy for the writer?  Stay tuned for more squirm in your seat action!

Holy Cow!

Don't say I didn't warn you!  It has been an incredibly busy month for me, and sadly for my family who I feel don't even recognize me anymore.  I have finally come to the completion of the largest part of my busyness.  TMEA Convention is over, UIL Concert Contest and Sight-Reading are complete, and next week I will have a few days of well-earned rest.  Unfortunately I do have a winterguard competition this Saturday and church on Sunday which is always busy, so I don't really get a break until then, but that's alright.  So without further ado, let me get you caught up:

The convention was not nearly as big of a deal as last year.  Highlights include a concert b

y the combined trombone studios of Texas Tech and Baylor Universities, a seminar weighing the positives and negatives between a small school and large school atmospheres and teaching in both, a performance showing how there is a rejuvenation of silent films and putting new music to them, a concert by the herald trumpets who play at all the President's major functions, and a seminar on how to use iChat to have a composer come to your rehearsal.  Lowlight was sad to say the Fellowship of Christian Musicians breakfast, a few reasons why: 1) no breakfast, 2) gripe session about modern worship music practices, 3) gripe session about parents, and finally 4) no useful information on how to start a FCM chapter at your own school. I actually ended up walking out of the room, I was so frustrated.  The rest of the convention went well, but there was nothing terribly spectacular about it.  In fact, I left early so I could come home and clean the entire house for my wife for her combined Valentine's and birthday presents.  All in all, a pretty good weekend.  Which led into...

UIL Concert Contest and Sight-Reading competition.  We prepared for this for three weeks after the Convention, including having a clinician come in and work with the kids one day followed by a pre-UIL competition the same week, and culminating in a concert for the public on Sunday and the actual event on Wednesday.  It was a little tricky because we had standardized testing on Tuesday before the event, so I didn't have a chance to have a rehearsal with my kids the day before we actually went.  Fortunately I work with some great teachers who sacrificed having their kids for a majority of the day so we could have an extra rehearsal.  We went and played before some really tough judges earning our group a III-III-III rating in the concert portion and a II-II-III rating in the sight-reading room.  I say the judges were tough because I feel my group deserved a II rating, but they only handed out a Superior (I) rating to one band yesterday among the forty or so bands they heard.  High school went today and earned a II-III-III in concert and an impressive feat in the sight-reading room earning a I-II-III rating.  Which means that one judge thought you did a superior job while another felt it was just an average job.  

With that done, I'm hoping to reconnect with my family over the next weeks and have my headaches that have been a constant companion of mine for the past two to three weeks due to stress I hope.

Well, like I said in the previous post I do have enough to keep me busy through the remainder of the year which is quickly approaching.  And not only at school, but also at church where I'm still leading music every three weeks and doing music for the youth every week.  Kayla is also working on getting talks every week.  Hopefully, we'll get through it alright and have some fun while doing it and somewhere along the way I can reconnect with my wife and daughter and not be so exhausted when I come in the door every night.  Well, that's all for now, almost.  I did forget to mention the horrible feeling of homesickness I had at the beginning of this week when we saw my friends back in Athens enjoy a rare snowstorm of between 4 and 9 inches on Sunday while I had to suffer through 90 degree weather here in the desert!  It was made even more painful as the pictures started to show up on blogs and facebook of some of our favorite people in the world playing with their children.  I guess that's the price we pay for having a job, which I'm very thankful for!  Okay, that's it.  As always I hope my blogging will be a bit more consistent, but you'll just have to stay tuned and find out!