Donate Towards Lauren's Fight for Healing & Recovery

Dear Friends, Family, and Kind Strangers,

We come to you with heavy hearts to share the story of our beloved daughter, Lauren, a sophomore in high school and a cherished member of our community. Lauren has always been a bright light in our lives, bringing joy and laughter to everyone around her. She held a deep passion for soccer, having played since kindergarten, and her talent as a goalkeeper made her a standout player among her team. She also wrestles, enjoys lifting weights, and is a certified soccer referee while maintaining straight A's in school.

Recently, our world was turned upside down as Lauren suffered an anoxic brain injury on 10/27. She's been in the PICU for almost 7 weeks and is scheduled to transfer to an out-of-town brain rehabilitation hospital next week. Doctors are still uncertain what recovery will look like, but she's already shown that she has a lot of fight in her as she's already surpassed their expectations from when she first came to the PICU. However, her recovery will require extensive rehabilitation—both physically and emotionally.

As we sit by her side, providing unwavering support and love, we are also facing the daunting reality of financial strain. Medical expenses are piling up, including insurance deductibles and costs for treatments that insurance may not fully cover. Additionally, we have had to miss work to be with Lauren, and the lost income only adds to the burden we are carrying during this incredibly difficult time.

We are reaching out to our community to help support Lauren and our family during this challenging journey. All funds will go directly to cover medical expenses, rehabilitation, and to help offset the financial loss we are experiencing.

We truly appreciate any support you are able to provide. And we would like to express our deep gratitude to everyone who has offered their time, energy, and resources to support our family over these last 7 weeks. Your kindness and generosity have meant more to us than words can express.

With gratitude,

Karen

12/20 Update:

First, thank you to everyone for your amazing support. We are so very grateful for the donations and sharing of this to gain more attention on top of all the prayers, good vibes and juju that's being sent Ren's and our way. It truly is so very appreciated

We transferred to Charlotte this past Mon and it has def been a big adjustment for Ren, but everything is going well so far. At this time, we have an initial discharge date of 1/28; however, that could very well be extended depending on how well she responds to therapy.

These 1st few days has seen some progress with getting Lauren out of bed and into the wheelchair for extended periods of time. She's been on a tilt table to start working her leg muscles and she's working really, really hard on moving her arms some and working on some head control. She got a cervical collar yesterday which will help a lot with regaining muscle strength in her neck and shoulders.

They're working on some med adjustments and have done some repeat testing to make sure nothing is being missed, which so far has all been good.

I can't emphasize enough that even with the progress we've seen, this will be a long and hard recovery for her (for myself and Bryan as well). So please, keep sending out all the prayers for her as they're working!