Published!

This past three days, when it rained for me in the publishing world, it poured!

Ever since writing as a student reporter at BYU five years ago, I haven't been able to shake a strong desire to write feature stories. While I do some feature-type writing in my full-time job, I had a hankering to share stories on a broader scale. It took an encouraging writer friend and many months of building up guts until I submitted ideas to the Deseret News. After four weeks of (sometimes not so) patiently waiting, the big payoff came when four of them were recently published!

Thank you for your kind support. Many of you sent nice emails and helped spread the word about babies and battery buttons - it's a hidden danger we all need to know about. Thank you Karla Rauch for sharing Emmett's story with me, and letting me help spread awareness.

From now on, I'll periodically post my published articles and put them in the fancy new tab (did you notice it?) called "WRITER GIRL."

Speaking of which ...

Click here to see my KSL article: New company offers in-flight babysitters

Published March 5, 2012 (teaser below)

Getting ready for Spring Break? Taking the kids on a flight? Launched in 2011, Nanny in the Clouds seeks to "change the way young families fly by connecting them with nannies already on their flight."

Babies and button batteries don't mix

SALT LAKE CITY -- As babies do, Emmett had been playing with the family DVD remote. When the bite-sized battery fell out the back, he instinctively put it in his mouth and swallowed it. Later, on the day of his first birthday party, baby Emmett woke up with an unusual, concerning fever.

In a series from every parent’s worst nightmare, he started coughing up blood. The parents rushed for medical help and soon found themselves with doctors looking at an X-ray of his tiny frame, and a coin-sized circular disk lodged in his throat.

Three terrifying hours and a surgery later, parents Karla and Michael Rauch of Peoria, Ariz., learned their son’s throat had suffered severe damage from toxic battery acid. It had burned two holes, and he had to have four inches of his esophagus removed.

Since that fateful day in October 2010, Emmett lived in and out of the ICU for nine months, had multiple cases of collapsed lung, and endured 19 surgeries along with almost 200 X-rays.

All this heartache came from one small button battery.

Read the rest of the article here: Babies and button batteries don't mix

Published March 3, 2012 on KSL.com

Author's note: My beautiful friend Karla and her husband Michael nearly lost their sweet a baby to a button battery. I decided to write the story and submit it to the Deseret News. It was published on KSL yesterday and already has had 12, 286 hits!* Please read the article and educate yourself on how to protect the children in your life.

*As of April 2012, the KSL story has had 19, 500+ views. Let's continue to share the message.