11/05/2021
Hi Everyone! How on earth is it already November?🦃
In the spirit of this month I want to let all of you know just how thankful I am that you are here. I want to acknowledge each and every one of you who has supported my business from word-of-mouth to social media.
When I began in the fall of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, I had no idea how things would go, but by Christmas I was very busy and life was amazing. Starting in January 2021 our lives would get turned upside down when my then 18 year old ended up being admitted to the hospital twice in 2 weeks and ultimately needed emergency surgery. Due to Covid protocol, I was never allowed inside to be with her. It was completely traumatic, but we pushed on and she felt better.
Until February when we discovered she had a blood clot in her arm and that somehow the surgery had triggered something called brachial neuritis. This lead to extreme pain and weakness in her left shoulder, arm and hand. After several painful tests and months of physical therapy it was determined that she had a rare condition called thoracic outlet syndrome and ultimately we chose surgery. That was on 8/30/2021 in Dallas, TX with one of the top surgeons in the country who handle this complex surgery.
I wish I could say we are completely done and out of the woods with her health, but we are not quite there yet. It seems that after all of this trauma, her system has developed dysautonomia. This means that her heart rate at resting is now about 100+ beats per minute and will shoot upwards of 130-150+ upon standing or minimal physical exertion. She now has an appointment at Children's National Hospital in DC with yet another specialist to help get her the correct medication and more physical therapy will be in her future.
All of this has meant that she has been unable to attend college not only in the spring of 2021, but sadly in the fall as well. We are all very hopeful that she will be able to go back to school in January and get back to living her life as a college student.
If you have read this saga, thank you. During some of my hardest days this year I have been able to throw myself into making you beautiful cookie art and it has been incredibly therapeutic. Knowing I have your support has meant that on my hardest days, I had another reason to get up and push on.