Memories

One of my favorite features of Facebook has become the daily reminder of memories. It's essentially "On this day in history ..." except it's all things I wrote or pictures I shared. So many of the memories are happy or silly and bring a smile to my face. Even the one I saw a few days ago of Teddy in the dryer at 2 a.m. on one of those nights when we did a cookie decorating/explore the dryer party while he was up for 3 hours in the middle of the night.

Two years ago today I updated our family and friends with this:

"Teddy is schedule for surgery November 4 to remove a dermoid cyst from his nose. The cyst runs from the tip of his nose, through his septum, up to the lining of his brain. The doctors are unsure whether the cyst actually punctures the lining of his brain, so a neurosurgeon will be part of his team, hopefully more as a precaution than a necessity. If the cyst goes past the lining of the brain, the surgery will obviously be more complex and have much higher risk of complications. The cyst has deformed his nose, so depending on how much they have to remove to remove the cyst, he may need plastic surgery at a later time.

We expect he'll be at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee for at least three days with this surgery. It's called a nasal degloving, and it sounds lovely--a small incision at the bottom of his nose and peeling the skin back. Like taking a glove off your hand ... if his skin were the glove and his nose the hand.
This cyst was discovered by the imaging studies done after the swelling never went down when he bopped his nose. Instead of a broken nose, he had blood go into the cyst and essentially get stuck there.

As always, we appreciate your prayers. Teddy remains his smiling self and is the least affected by this news, at least until they do his surgery and make him fast again."

I remember, as much as we hoped the neurosurgeon would have nothing to do, wishing that perhaps this cyst had crossed into the lining of his brain ... only if it would be the explanation for his seizures and developmental delays. We didn't want brain surgery, but we wanted answers. If I'm being completely honest, part of us wanted to hope that not only was this cyst the explanation but that removing it could also remove Teddy's symptoms. Our ENT said it was unlikely the cyst crossed into the brain based on the imaging ... and she was right.

I remember how terrified we were to do the surgery, rightfully so because Teddy was knocked out for 7 hours while we waited and paced and waited and prayed. And then we got released from the hospital the next day, much to our surprise. (I suppose it helped Teddy's case that he was trying to stand up in his crib at midnight.) I remember being exhausted and disappointed because I heroically took the first night at the hospital with every intention of getting an awesome night of sleep while Dave spent the second night in the hospital.

But most of all, as I reread this post and all the comments people posted, I remember how much love, support, prayers and well wishes we have from all our family and friends. Teddy and our family have been included in more prayers than I could ever count ... and continue to be. What a blessing for our family!