surgery week

After 3 weeks of wonderful vacations I had to head to the Cleveland Clinic to have the AVM's (atrerial venous malformations) that were in my neck and shoulder removed. Those of you who know me pretty well know my history with those... but here is the short version of a 20+ year struggle. I was born with an AVM in my left hand. At 8 months of age I had that one removed and I was told it would never come back. Over the course of several years I have had 8+ develop in different locations on the upper left side of my body. For several years I was told that it was best to "leave them be" and that we would just monitor the growth and deal with the pain as it came. I had 2 different procedures to slow down the blood flow in the veins that were feeding the growths, but this was only a temporary fix.

During my pregnancy with Teagan I had some very difficult spells, especially towards the end of the pregnancy. Between the pain and the growth that developed over the time I was pregnant we felt we needed to get some answers before we proceeded with the next pregnancy. And to be perfectly honest... I was just plain sick of dealing with them! I finally found 2 doctors at the Cleveland Clinic that are fabulous! They are the first Doctor's that has been able to give me any type of game plan for taking care of these pesky things. I was in the hospital for a week... and boy was it a long week... but the surgery was a great success. I am so thankful that the Lord lead me to this team of doctors. Maybe this was another reason I was supposed to marry Ted and move to Ohio?

Nikki and the girls came to take care of Teagan, which was a huge relief for me! I get so worked up about leaving her for a DAY so I knew a week was going to do me in. It was so comforting to know that she was home and sticking to her normal routine. They brought her up so that she was there when I got out of surgery and then for another visit a few days later.

Waiting for mom to get out of recovery

The girls were so great to have around. They are such a big help with Teagan and they just crack me up all the time. Here are some fun snapshots of the week.

We couldn't figure out where the girls had gone off to one day.... my mom found them in our closet playing dress up with Ted's clothes!

My all time FAVE of them. Arn't they BEAUTIFUL little girls?!