Monday, the day the AVM burst (and I didn’t yet feel bad) playing at our favorite park.

Then I put babies to sleep. I fell asleep with David and woke up feeling bad. I thought I had some kind of weird migraine. My head hurt and I couldn’t see well, and slept, slept, and slept. I begin to lose words. On Wednesday I tried to see a neurologist but the appointment desk made a mistake, and scheduled me for the next day, instead. Thursday morning we decided we shouldn’t wait any more. A quick CT scan showed a walnut-sized clot in my brain. In the afternoon a doctor used an angiogram with contrast dye to better plot and measure the size of the AVM. Then they sent me to ICU. That evening we consulted with our neurosurgeon and scheduled our surgery the early next day. Late at night I had two MRI images to help map the brain for the surgery, and the dots on my head helped guide the MRI images. This is what I looked like after the MRI. I am smiling in the picture, but I’m scared out of my wits.

The surgery should have taken a few hours, but it took ten hours to remove the entire malformation. Then I slept in the ICU while doctors made sure I was stable. The next morning my shunt and intubation came out, and I recovered for several days in ICU. Tuesday morning, I was sent to the regular neuro floor. I saw my incision for the first time. Wow!
The next day, Wednesday, I was sent home. I missed my babies. My babies missed me, too.