This is little "big" sisters story!

            Avri has a sister that is 3 years younger than her. Her name is Hattie.  I always said from the day Hattie first starting kicking me in the womb that she was going to be a fire ball.  To this very day "I was right".  Hattie was born and from that moment on she wanted me and only me. She wanted my world to revolve around her. She demanded it.
            Hattie struggled when Avri was in the hospital because it took away from her. Hattie would come up to the hospital. From her perspective she saw, video games, movies, arts, crafts basically anything you want you get.  Primary Children's hospital will go out of their way to make these kids happy. Hattie was 3 at the time and she did not understand that all that entertainment and the treats all came at a very painful cost.  With each of Avri's visits Hattie struggled. She would get mad at Avri. She thought "this is not fair" She would ask when it would be her turn to stay in the hospital.She also felt hurt from me that I was favoring Avri over her.  Most kids at the age of three really don't have a sense of true pain. You can show them the stitches, you can explain until you are blue in the face.   It can't register as deeply as it should because they don't know any better.
             I noticed that Hattie was becoming more and more unruly. She also had started these episodes where she would turn white as a ghost and she would make this swallowing motion as if she was trying not to throw up. I can't count the amount of times I would pick her up and dash to the toilet and hold her over it.  She would almost instantly look at me (very confused) and say "what are you doing"?  She never did throw up!  I was pregnant with the twins at the time and I was so sick. Matt (her dad) took her to a doctors appointment.  The nurse came in and took all the notes. She asked why they had come in. Matt explained that she seemed to be having these episodes where she would go pale and then seem like she was going to throw up and then she would be fine.  SO then the doctor walks in for the exam and says "So whats going on Hattie?"  She replies "MY BOOBS HURT!"   Matt very quickly throws out "my wife is pregnant"  After a brief exam, The doctor says "She is mimicking her mom"!    As funny as that was, I was not convinced that she was mimicking me.  I began to research on the web. I found that the episodes she was having sounded just like a type of partial seizure. I took her to a different doctor and he was not confident that I was right but agreed enough that he ordered an MRI.
            Hattie was to young to hold still for an MRI so she was sedated for the imaging. I was still sitting with her in the recovery room when the doctor came in and told me she had a small mass in her brain.  Of all things that was the last thing I expected to hear.  He told me it looked like a hemaginoma (this is a big mass of blood vessels)  I was not told more than that.  I drove home a teary mess. Not only was I dealing with a new medical problem but I was pregnant with twins and my hormones were crazy!
           The following day I set up appointments with neurosurgery and neurologist. Hattie had a quick EEG. The test showed no seizure activity. Then we talked with neurosurgery. They wanted more studies. So Hattie finally got her wish. She was admitted to Primary Children's Hospital for a week long EEG. She was hooked up to a million wires and her head was wrapped in gauze. She was not allowed to move except to go to the bathroom for 1 week. Let me tell you how fun that was.  Nightmare for both of us!  The bad thing with all that was more than anything Hattie did not understand Avri's  pain issues because she spent the time in the hospital now and she did not get poked...Not once!  Hattie's week long study came up with nothing. We were told not to worry and that she would be fine. Go home and forget about it.  OK...hard to do, but we did.
         A few month had gone by. It was 3 weeks before Christmas and I got a call from neurosurgery.  The team had been reviewing imaging for learning purposes and in the process came to the agreement that this mass in Hattie's brain may be some kind of cancerous tumor. The doctor said "it looked like it may actually have a crust around it" Which would indicate tumor instead of blood vessels.  I was told they wanted to operate after the holidays. I was to shave her head 1 week before Christmas just to give her time to get use to the bald head.  He explained that this would be a lengthy surgery and in a part of her brain where senses and memory were controlled.  They wanted her to wake up with the least amount of confusion possible.