UPDATES 5-05-2008

Thank you for visiting our site and welcome to our weekly update on Lauren.

Lauren is certainly acting her age these days. Her behavior is definitely that of a 2 year old now! She is making life tough for her therapists. She tries to escape therapy by crawling away at top speed. I can tell that Lauren is my daughter because she loves being outside in the warm weather!

Lauren recovered very well from her ear tubes surgery with no sign of infection. The only downside is that she puts her head down on the floor and cries whenever Sarge starts barking now. I think her ears are more sensitive to the noise again and Sarge barks quite a bit, so this can be a problem. We are getting anxious about her upcoming spinal surgery this Friday (5/09). I have included the details in past weeks and they have not changed.

Dr. Chin is the general pediatric surgeon that will be assisting Dr. Tomita for her LP (lumbar-peritoneal) shunt surgery. Dr. Chin will clear a path for Dr. Tomita to avoid scar tissue. Lauren will most likely need to stay in the hospital for at least 3 days after these surgeries. In the past, the stay was around 5 days, if there were no complications. Please feel free to come and visit us on the 3rd floor at Children's, our home away from home :).

I spent most of last week dealing with pre-surgery appointments and tests. We were able to get the "upper GI with small bowel follow-through" done for Lauren last Wednesday. Lauren set a new record with the radiologist. It took 5 hours to get the barium solution from Lauren's stomach to her colon. This typically takes an hour. We had to take x-rays every 45 minutes to an hour and I was about 5 minutes from having them halt the test when the good news came that we were done. It is no easy task to keep her still and happy for that amount of testing. Luckily, we could hang out in the waiting room between x-rays and she loved this little car that I could push her around in. The radiologist did not find any obstructions, so the pediatric surgeon will be pleased to hear that.

I went in to donate blood for Lauren in the event that she required it during surgery. It seems like the stars have to be aligned to get this all set up and done with enough time to test the blood prior to having it ready for surgery. Until Lauren is 22 pounds, they are required to have blood on hand for each neurosurgery. She has had one transfusion that was not from me because we weren't expecting her to need it at that time. I guess it is better to be ready for anything. Many people have offered to donate blood for Lauren and we appreciate that, but they only will accept direct family donations with the same exact blood type. They do not accept "universal" donations at Children's. I feel like I learn so much every day. I need to bring Lauren to Children's for blood tests this week and then we are finally ready! Now, we just need to keep her healthy and not worry so much.

Lauren has so much going for her, not to mention the support of so many people. In closing for the week, I wanted to say that no matter how strong we may appear, these big surgeries are a lot of pressure for the entire family. Any kind thoughts and prayers that you could send Lauren's way on Friday morning would be much appreciated. I just wish that I could be sedated during these surgeries right along with her!

Thank you for your continued support of Lauren.