Part 2 of "little big sister story!

            Here is what I was told!   Hattie has a mass in her brain! Neurosurgery is no longer sure what it is. They want to operate to remove it.  Here is a list of the cons of not doing the surgery.
At this point they were not sure what exactly it was, so cancer would surely kill her.
This mass appeared to have a crust around it...this meant that if it was blood vessels like they originally thought, it had leaked. The crust was blood that formed around the mass.  If this was the case it could continue to leak. Eventually this would lead to a massive stroke I was told between the age of now to 24. A massive stroke could cause a number of problems including death.
            If we chose to do the surgery. The risks were. Lose of eye sight in the one eye, memory loss, (which included identity, loved ones, all motor skills)  The best way to describe it would be that they were erasing her hard drive and I was going to have to start all over with everything I ever taught her.
            As parents the thought as Hattie's parents were. We could not go day to day wondering if this would be the day she was going to throw a clot in her brain. We had seen how resilient Avri was. Kids in general are very resilient. Hattie was a fighter. Her will to run, play and just live life was to great for her to not make it through this surgery with a full recovery.
           I did the one thing I could do. I shaved her head! I let her cut it until she was done and then I gave her the clippers. We together made it a fun event instead of of trauma on both of us.  I asked my church ward to have a day of fast and prayer for her. I left the rest to the hands of the surgeon and God.  The surgery lasted 5 hours. I got updates about every hour and a half. " we are still dissecting the brain, she is stable, vitals look great, we will call you in about another hour and a half"  The last call in the waiting room that came through for me " Hattie is out of surgery, everything went well, the mass was leaking blood vessels, we showed seizure activity in that spot once we got to it. She is in recovery they will call you in about an hour to go see her" "we still do not know her functioning level so prepare yourself".
          I kid you not...Recovery paged over head 15 minutes later. This is what it said "we need the mother of Hattie Davis to recovery stat!' " She is yelling for her mother and her yellow blankie"   I can not tell you the joy in my heart at that very moment!  I knew she was OK. She knew me and she knew her favorite blanket.  I ran down the hall, their was a lady waiting at the door for me and brought me in to Hattie. O...She was mad. She was so mad "why did I do this to her? What Happened? This hurts! Take me home!  I cried and kissed her and thanked heaven above for not changing her!  The surgery required the surgeon to remove the entire left side of Hattie's scull, so she had a lot of swelling in her face. She woke up day 2 and yelled "I'm blind" it actually was funny because she was smiling as always! Hattie was expected to stay at least 1 week in the hospital. She refused to do anything they asked of her unless she could just go home. I was able to bring her home after 4 days.  I can say the one thing that changed!  To this day Avri has a sister who understands what she is going through. Hattie has stuck up for Avri and sympathized with each of her surgeries. Not only for Avri but for me...as she was able to finally see the whole picture.

The day she went home

Nothing's going to slow her down
        I took Hattie in for her 1 year follow up and the MRI showed nothing. The surgeon said usually they can see scarring but it was as if she never had the mass in the first place. She is almost 11 now and she is still just as hard headed and determined as ever.