Update

It has been a couple of months, and (excuse my language) a shit ton has been going on so I figured it is finally time for an update! 

My last post was how I switched jobs and my mom was undergoing breast cancer treatment so the girls were at day care.  I am happy to report that my mom is now finished with her treatments and feeling great.  She is going to start watching the girls again 3 days a week in January.  The daycare experience hasn’t been too terrible, however, I am glad to get them out of the germ cesspool with winter coming. 

As my mom was getting better health wise, I have had some health issues these past 2 months.  It also started one night in the middle of the night when I woke up with excruciating pain in my abdomen.  It was similar to labor pain, but not quite as bad (maybe an 8 or 9 if labor is a 10).  I felt like something was wrong so we headed to the emergency room.  After a bunch of tests, they found that a portion of my small intestine had slid into my large intestine and got stuck. I underwent surgery to fix this, but by the time they got inside, the small intestine had slid back out and they just took out my appendix (I guess this is common to remove if you are in that same area of the body for surgery to rule it out for future issues.)  I was in the hospital one night and then went home, recovery wasn’t too terrible, but the hardest part was I wasn’t supposed to lift the girls for 30 days (that ended up lasting about 2 weeks for Juliet, because how can you not pick up a 1 year old??). 

To find the cause of my issues, I had a colonoscopy (yup, like 15 years earlier than most!) and they found a 4 cm polyp in my large intestine.  Luckily tests showed it was benign, but would have to come out through another surgery since it was too big to leave in there as it could turn into cancer eventually. So back to the OR I went!  This time was a bit easier because we had some lead time to schedule family to come help us with the girls and get everything in order (it lit a fire to get all the Christmas decorations out, go see Santa, clean the house, etc).  So last week I had surgery where they took out a 6-8 inch section of my small/large intestines and stapled them back together! Apparently you don’t need the full length of your large intestine for it to function well.  10 days post surgery and I am feeling really good.   I am back at work and have minimal pain, but again, I can’t lift the girls for a while.  I am just happy we have so much family close by to help us with the girls, etc.  I don’t know how we would have survived otherwise.  I am glad it is all over before the holidays and I hope to be able to lift Juliet by Christmas.

I also made the decision to wean Juliet (she was down to nursing 1-2 times per day) before my surgery.  Even though it made me a bit sad to stop nursing her, knowing this is probably our last baby, it was the right decision to make because I didn't have to worry about pumping or engourgement, etc while at the hospital.  And it didn't even phase Jules, which made it easier on me. 

Ok, so that is the craziness that has been my life!  (oh I forgot to add that during all this I also had a breast lump biopsy that was luckily also benign). 

The good news is that the girls are healthy (minus the occasional teething, daycare fever, etc) and I pray it stays that way.  I am hoping 2017 is the year of health for my family as we have had our share of issues in 2016! 

And now some pictures! 

Halloween

Sitting with Santa

 At my company's holiday party before my second surgery