Poopie!

Hey Family and Friends!

How are you? We're fine. Seems lately I'm just fighting the pain of this darned avm! Don't like to take so many meds, but I don't want to feel the pain either! I don't want it to sound like I'm whining all the time - but one of the main purposes of this blog, is for everyone to know what life with an avm is like!

I had gone to wound care yesterday and that had gone well! Noel had cleaned the wound and redressed it. Well, that evening, I had a red spot toward the top of the dressing about the size of a dime. We kept an eye on it, and after dinner, Mark changed the dressing. Well, the following day (which was today) by mid morning, I had a red dot about the size of a pea toward the top of the dressing. That kind of bummed me out! After lunch time, my co-worker Kathy pointed out the fact that now I had some red toward the bottom of my dressing! Oh great! I thanked her and knew I had to keep an eye on it! So, right about 20 minutes of 5:00 p.m., Kathy told me I was bleeding! Ugh! I look in the mirror and sure enough - my dressing was filling up with blood! Poopie! I grabbed a couple of napkins from my desk drawer, grabbed my wound care bag and asked Kathy to tell my friend Diana to please come to the restroom where I was headed! I carefully peeled the clear plastic tape off and the pink dressing and saw the arterial squirt of blood shooting out! I quickly got a wet paper towel and put pressure on the area! By then, Diana made it to the restroom and she had some plastic gloves on and started helping me out! We checked a couple of times, but I was still bleeding. We stood around as I held pressure on my wound area, and finally the bleeding stopped! I had called Mark to tell him what was going on just in case I needed him to come over, but I thought we could handle it on our own! Diana got some non-adherant dressing and we put that over the wound and put the clear plastic tape over it - just enough to get me home where Mark could clean and redress it properly!

Made it home ok - took the quickie dressing off and while Mark was cleaning it, he tried removing some surgicel I had toward the top of the dressing, and the area started to bleed! He quickly put pressure on the area, and the bleeding stopped soon enough! We let the area dry up a bit before redressing it, then I took a shower while Mark fixed dinner!

Here is a photo of Hanz and I - since we both bathed today, ha, ha! He's such a cutie! Mark had taken him out for an evening walk a little earlier and now we're all off to bed! Note my puffy eye. Really tired of that! Can't wear ANY make-up and I really wish I could! I love mascara too and that is totally out of the question!

Like I said before, I'm anxious to get to Colorado - I think next time I'll only wait 6 weeks instead of the 8 weeks I did this time between embolizations! Course a lot of it depends on how much "damage" Dr. Yakes does to me! He's so funny - I was telling someone earlier, how Dr. Yakes comes over to give me a big hug and kiss before I get taken to the surgical room! He's really great and I have to trust that all of this will be worth it in the long run! Like I have a choice! Gotta keep moving forward! Thanks again all of you for your well wishes and prayers!

Love,

Cyndi