Lauren came into this world with a very malformed heart and so heart surgeries and extended hospital stays were a part of her world. What defined Lauren however, was her love for living life to the fullest. She battled her heart defect courageously and by God's grace lived life large. She had the biggest smile and a personality that just made those around her laugh out loud. She loved learning and trying new things; playing with her sisters; attending Church; and talking on the telephone (she just loved to talk - period).
She loved and was loved completely.
Lauren was scheduled for her final heart surgery on September 22, 2004. All of her pre-surgery testing, including a catheterization, indicated that she should fly right through the recovery. But she didn't. It seems that the resistance to blood flow through her lungs was too high for her to be able to adjust to the new circulation of the Fontan surgery. (This may be due to damage done to her lungs because of her Intact Atrial Septum at birth - but know one is sure.) Normally, the blood that has been 'used' by our bodies is pumped into the lungs by the right ventricle of the heart while the left ventricle pumps the blood from the lungs to the body. But in a child with HLHS, the right ventricle is now used to pump blood from the lungs to the body as the left one is tiny and unusable. The Fontan surgery is the last step in altering the circulation so that the 'used' blood from the body is sent to the lungs directly - without going through the heart. This new circulation relies upon the pressures that exist in our central venous system to get the blood through the lungs. But because the resistance in her lungs was too high, this made it difficult for the blood to move through her lungs. The result is that the central venous pressures rose as the body worked to complete the circulation path. This increase in the pressures of the central venous system made it difficult for her other internal organs (like her kidneys and liver) to get sufficient blood flow.
She fought long and hard for over a month. We had up days and down days as we had with her other surgeries. She was even extubated (taken off of the breathing machine) about one week after surgery, but she was working soooo hard to breath on her own that she had to be re-intubated. Then suddenly near the end of her struggle, the bottom seemed to fall out. She was only getting worse as time passed and she picked up an infection which didn't help things at all. We tried one final cath procedure in an effort to lower her central venous pressures. The cath seemed to go well - but the pressures remained high. Within a few days of the cath, Lauren was in a state of severe multiple organ failure.
Those of you who have met Lauren know what a joy she was. For those who have not, words cannot begin to describe how truly wonderful she was. There is not a person that she has met that she didn't make laugh or at least smile - even those who didn't know her history. While her defect caused her to become winded more quickly and landed us in the ER more times than I care to count - she didn't let it define who she was. She would still run around and do the things she wanted to do - she would just pant through them and perhaps stop a little sooner than she would like. And boy did she love to talk. From the moment she awoke in the morning (her internal clock was set to 6:45 AM sharp - no matter when she went to sleep) until we insisted she go to bed at night, she talked and talked and talked. She talked to us, to her sisters, to strangers in the store, to her Grandma on the phone; and into her many pretend cell phones, she talked to God knows who else. In fact, I am sure that right now she is setting the angels straight about something.
LAUREN'S UPDATES
