NDFS 405

One of my dietetics this semester is the Nutritional Assessment Lab. We do a lot of really cool stuff in this lab - so far we've done height and weight measurements, BMI, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratios, skinfold measurements, body composition measurements, bone density, blood glucose, hematocrit, hemoglobin, and... other stuff. And what makes this lab super interesting is that we get to find out all this information for ourselves.

Last week I found out that I have very high bone density. This is relieving; I've actually wondered if I have rather low bone density for my age. I feel like all growing up I didn't really drink much milk, because we always had powdered milk at my house (which I really extremely don't care for). However, I did eat a ton of cheese, so I guess I got enough calcium from that.

This past week we did a lab that required a lot of finger pricking for blood glucose, hematocrit (measures the percent of blood that is red blood cells) and hemoglobin. I was kinda laughing to myself after this lab. For me, pricking myself two or three times and getting drops of blood was no big deal, I do it all the time, and I know how to get blood. However, when people came back from the lab into the conference room were we finish our reports, I heard a lot of people saying stuff like "I feel like a pincushion" and "that was so hard!" and other things along those lines. Now I know that it was easy for me because I'm used to it, and if I wasn't I'm sure it would be more challenging too. But it still made me smile.

Also, I found out last week that I am 25% fat. It blows my mind sometimes how much fat women need to have to be able to do important stuff like have babies. Did you know that, generally speaking, you need to have between 17-20% body fat to even menstruate? (Am I allowed to talk about stuff like this on a blog...?)

Dear mom

Dear Mother R

You are great. We love you. School is going well. Matthew is awesome. He does a LOT for me. You would be proud :)

Love Stephanie

A party in my mouth

Tell me this isn't the coolest silverware you've ever seen:

Especially when you put it with the cool plate, bowl and cup:

best day of my life

August 14, 2009 was absolutely perfect. The temple is definitely the place to be married - nothing could have been more awesome than kneeling across the alter with Matthew, being sealed to him. Here are a few of the pictures from the day, some of my favorites:

classes

Classes are going all right. Matthew's taking geography, a bunch of physics, weather, astronomy, doctrine and covenants.

I'm taking dance, french literature, and a bunch of dietetics classes (management in dietetics, teaching methods in dietetics, community nutrition, community nutrition fieldwork, nutritional assessment lab...)

One thing I really like about dietetics. The senior class has 29 people in it - its a pretty small major. We all have the same classes at the same time with the same professor. Really, none of the dietetics classes are offered at different times, everyone is always together. All of our classes are always in the same classroom, too. It's actually really fun. We always tend to sit in generally the same spot. I feel like my classmates have become my friends. Group projects - usually something that I dread in other classes - are great in dietetics, because everyone always puts in a lot of effort, and we're all on the same page, and we know each other. It's a good time.

I'm not feeling too overwhelmed yet. I'm trying to do as much work in advance right now, before the middle and end of the semester when things really get crazy. Another thing I like about my classes this semester: instead of being exam-based, like most classes, they have very minimal amounts of exams, and the emphasis is put on projects. I much prefer that. I feel like I learn better doing projects, and although projects generally require a lot of work, they tend to be a little less stressful (or at least not the same kind of stress) than tests.

I mentioned almost all my classes are in the same classroom - I pretty much living in the Eyring (one of the buildings on campus). As a physics major, almost all of Matthew's classes are in the Eyring too. It makes it so convenient to spend time together, even during a hectic school day. We meet up for a few minutes in between classes, or when we have breaks. It's great.

Let's go camping!

We were thinking about going camping in the mountains, but then decided what we really felt like doing was camping in the living room! Remember the forts/tents you used to make with chairs and tables and blankets when you were younger? That is exactly what we did.

A couple other happy things

After getting back from France (our official honeymoon) and before school starts I still count as part of the honeymoon. So here's a few other happy things to mention:

We took Matthew's mom down to the Sculpture Garden where Matthew proposed. Here we are! (But now we're married!)

And on our drive to Kansas from Minnesota:

Blue raspberry, please

So, for wedding presents, we got a ton of gift cards. A couple of them were to Bed, Bath and Beyond. Neither Matthew nor I had ever been in this store, and there's some nice stuff, but holy cow its expensive. So we were there this past Monday, getting some things, spending our gift cards, and after getting the things that we needed, we realized that we had about $20 left on our gift card. We didn't have anything left that we needed to buy, and it was just a matter of something that we wanted to buy. So we decided on the...

SLUSHIE MAKER!!!!!!!

Such a worthwhile investment:

In the city of love

Matthew and I had the BEST honeymoon ever. We spent 5-6 days in Paris! It was so great. Here's what we did:

Tuesday 8/18:
Got on a plane to Paris. We enjoyed expanding our repertoire of movies thanks to in-flight movie feature.

Wednesday 8/19:
We landed and took the RER into Paris. Met up with one of my best friends, Kate, who was doing an internship in Paris (the one I was supposed to do). She bought us falafel, and we talked for a while. Kate's so great. We walked around Parc Monceau, one of my favorite parks in Paris, which was really close to my apartment when I lived there. Extreme jetlag eventually got the better of us, and we crashed and took a nap for a bit. We felt more refreshed when we woke up, so we went out and bought a baguette and cheese (yes!) and some other stuffs at a little street market grocery store and headed down to the Eiffel tower. We didn't actually go up it that night, but we walked around it, and under it. Matthew was very impressed by it, and how big it was. We found some grass up by Trocadero, and ate our food in the presence of the lighted and sparkling tour eiffel.
Thursday 8/20:
We slept in super duper late this morning (thank you jetlag!). Then we walked around the outside of le Centre Pompidou, a modern-y sort of building built "inside out".
Anyway, you get the idea. The multi-colored building on the street is Pompidou. All the colors mean something - as in the blue pipes are AC units, etc. (I just made that up. I don't know specifically what colors are for what, just an example.) It's a pretty sweet building, that houses some pretty crazy modern art.
Le Centre Pompidou is really close to a crepe stand that my friends and I used to frequent on a daily basis when we were there on study abroad. We made friends with all the Egyptian-y guys who worked there and made us crepes. They also happen to make the best crepes around. So of course we went there to get our crepes. And whadaya know, the same guy was still working there, and he remembered me! In fact, he remembered all of us girls who would go there. And we had a nice chat while he made our crepes. It really was so happy.
Later, we walked over to one of the islands on the Seine, where Sainte Chapelle is. I've heard awesome things about this church, but never actually was able to go inside. It was gorgeous! The entire church, all the walls, from almost floor to vaulted ceiling were stained glass. Each of the 14 windows of glass represented a certain book or event (the atonement) from the Bible. We had fun trying to pick out different scenes on the glass.
We then headed to Rue de Rivoli, one of the main big streets in Paris, with awesome shopping. We spent a bit of time doing some shopping, mostly at H&M and Etam.
We then headed down to my old neighborhood. I showed Matthew where I used to live, where I used to shop, and told him all of the stories I could think of. :)
My street.
We walked around for a long time, and since it was quite late at this point, stopped at a restaurant for some dinner.
I've gotta say, we both agreed the potatoes we ate were probably the best we've ever had. ever.

We headed to the Arc de Triomphe, and walked around the base, and then sat on the base for a while, before heading home.

Sitting on the base of l'Arc de Triomphe

Friday 8/21:
When we finally got up (around noon) on Friday, we headed out to the Louvre. Before we actually went inside, we ate lunch against the walls of the Louvre.
Ok, we didn't eat ALL of this for lunch, but this was the type of stuff (it you can see it...) of what we carried around, and ate pretty much all the time. It was GREAT!

Le Louvre

We really enjoyed some of the signs that were posted in and around the Louvre:

No walking on water!

No yelling in Egyptian!

Matthew really liked the Louvre. We saw the Mona Lisa of course:
And I've thought, and Matthew agrees, that some of the coolest art is just the architecture of the building itself:
After spending a few hours in the Louvre, we went to a nearby cafe/teashop called Angelina. It has amazing hot chocolate, that's more like melted chocolate than anything else. It's a pretty steep price, but so worth it.

We walked by briefly L'Opera Garnier. This is the opera house that the Phantom of the Opera is based off of. A lot of the shots in the movie highly resemble the inside of the opera. This is one of my favorite places in Paris. It's gorgeous!
We headed back over to the Eiffel Tower. We grabbed a baguette at a bakery (we paid for it too) which we both agreed was the epitomy of good baguette. Crusty, but not too hard on the outside, soft on the inside, and really good flavor.
We walked down the Champs de Mars, the green park area in front of the Eiffel Tower, and then climbed up, and saw the last bits of the sunset from the top.

On the Eiffel. It was beautiful.

Saturday 8/22:
This morning first thing we stocked up on lots of food to take back to the states with us. Our stash included a lot of nutella, petit ecolier cookies, brioche tranchee, chocolate, and the best kind of apricot jam I've ever had.
We headed over to the Arc de Triomphe (which was within walking distance of our hotel) and then walked down the Champs Elysees, the biggest and most famous street in Paris. Lots of really ritzy stores are found on les Champs.

We went inside a perfume store and smelled a bunch of different kinds until we got kinda woozy, then went inside the virgin mobile store and listened to music, went briefly in the disney store, ate lunch, walked some more, and then headed to the Rodin museum. Rodin is a famous scupltor who did also famous works like the Thinker, or the Kiss. It's one of my favorite museums in Paris.

Matthew thinking with the Thinker.

Since we were rather close, and just like it, we decided to walk by the Eiffel Tower again.
Then we went back to Rue de Rivoli, finished some shopping, went to a bunch of food places and got baguettes, pastries, water, and macaroons.

Sunday 8/23:
We went to French church this morning! It was a lot of fun. I suppose Matthew didn't really understand anything, but he said he liked it too.
That afternoon/evening, we went to Parc Monceau again. We sat on a bench and people watched for a while.
And then we walked around ourselves.
(I know its super blurry, for some reason, when they were taking the picture, it just wouldn't get un-blurry. But you can still tell that its absolutely beautiful.)

We headed over to Notre Dame, and had a lot of fun looking at and analyzing and interpreting all of the different little scultpures on the outside of Notre Dame. Everything is a symbol. It's very fun.

Gargoyles!

We stopped by Sacre Coeur, but since it was late, we couldn't get up close.

Monday 8/24:
We basically had time in the morning to stop at a bakery and get a baguette for my dad, and then go to the airport to barely be on time to our plane, and then in Chicago, barely make our plane to Minneapolis. But we got home.

Paris was so amazing, again. It was absolutely fantastic to be there with Matthew, who I love so much, and show him and be surrounded in the language and all the things and all the places that are so beautiful to me. It was perfect.

A trip to the ER

So, during the course of a marriage, you expect at some time or another you'll be taking one of your kids to the hospital, maybe for a broken leg or something. However, most people wouldn't expect to take their wife to the hospital during the first three weeks of marriage. This is the story of why Matthew took me to the ER at 11 pm Wednesday night.

For the past couple days I hadn't been using my insulin pump - I didn't have a certain piece of equipment with me (I left it in MN) that lets me easily insert the tubing under my skin (without it, it doesn't go in properly, and I end up not getting any insulin). So I had been taking shots instead. Now when I take shots, I usually use two kinds of insulin. The first is called Lantus - It's a slow acting kind that lasts over a whole day. I take one shot of about 28 units one time a day, and it just keeps my body going, keeps me alive. The second is called Novolog, its a very rapid acting kind, and this kind I only take when I eat food, it compensates for what I eat.

So Wednesday night its about time for me to take the daily dose of Lantus. So I draw up about 14 units (I do the injection in two parts), shoot it into me, and about 30 seconds later realize that instead of putting Lantus in me, I had accidentally drawn up 14 units of Novolog. I'm all like gasp! nooooooo! and Matthew comes out and is like what's wrong? and then gets a look of shock on his face.

See, I usually wouldn't use 14 units of Novolog in an entire day, for an entire day's worth of food. 14 units of Novolog would cover 14 slices of bread, 14 cups of juice, 7 bowls of ice cream. It's a huge amount of insulin. If I don't eat enough food for the amount of insulin I take, then my blood sugar will go low, and in this case extremely low. Scarily low. Insulin shock low. Low as in you should be passed out, on the floor. Not good.

Matthew says right away we should go to the hospital, or doctor. I say I don't like going to the doctor, and maybe if I drink enough juice I'll be ok. So we try. I start drinking a glass of OJ, and then another one, and during the second glass, I start getting woozy. Shaky. Weak. Feeling a little confused. These are all signs of low blood sugar. At this point, Matthew doesn't even ask. He just goes and grabs his shoes and stuff, gets my shoes, and takes me out to the car. I didn't resist much at this point. Actually I was ok with going to the ER. Matthew even ran a few red lights - it was late at night, and he felt like this qualified as a good reason to just keep going. I was super duper shaky by then.

So, we get there, and they make us sit in the waiting room for like 10 minutes. By the way, insulin overdose and extreme low blood sugars are medical emergencies. Not things you make people wait 10 minutes for. Thankfully, though, I never passed out. My blood sugar did get pretty low, just from how I was feeling (we forgot to bring my blood checker with us, so we didn't get a reading of how low it did get). They put me in a room, took some blood, hooked me up to an IV and gave me some fluids.

It's pretty much amazing I didn't go unconscious. That much insulin in me could've been really bad. One possible explanation is that sometimes, when you go really low and there's an extreme excess of insulin in the system, the liver, which stores a form of carbohydrate, will "dump" out a lot in an effort to raise blood sugars.

One thing that absolutely flabbergasted me about the nursing staff - I had two nurses who, when I told them what had happened, that I had taken an overdose of Novolog, a fast acting insulin, looked at me and where kinda like, "whats the big deal? That is an "emergency" kind of insulin, it'll bring your blood sugar down for a little bit, and then your blood sugar will just pop right back up." Seriously. Seriously?! That is absolutely not how insulin works. It doesn't just pop right back up unless you compensate for it somehow. Emergency insulin my eye.

Matthew was great. He was pretty concerned (and pretty freaked out inside), but he took good care of me.

Suffice it to say, though, things turned out just fine, we came home and drank more juice and ate some bread and nutella, and I was all right. But I think it was still a good thing we went to the ER, because things could have been very different. It was a rather tense few hours, but everything turned out ok.