It’s with a heavy heart that I, Claire’s “Granny”, am attempting to raise funds to cover my sweet 8 year old grand daughter’s brain tumor surgery and recovery.

Over the past 4+ years, Claire has been suffering from seizures caused by a tumor deep in her brain.  When the tumor was discovered, Claire was put on a variety of medicines that helped minimize the frequency of her seizures.  Unfortunately, the medications have not completely stopped the seizures and they are now causing damage (in the form of scar tissue) to her brain. After repeated MRI’s over the last year we have discovered that the tumor is slowly growing and the swelling around it is pushing on the left temporal lobe and left hippocampus. 

Although the tumor is quite small and not growing at a rapid rate, it's starting to negatively affect Claire’s cognitive abilities including; short term memory, conversational speech, verbal recall, reading comprehension, executive function, and emotions. 

Because of this, a team of doctors at Stanford Children’s Hospital has informed Claire’s parents, (Ross and Nicole) that it is necessary for Claire to undergo neurosurgery to remove the tumor and scar tissue in hopes of eliminating future seizures.  After a lengthy recovery, we have every hope that Claire’s brain will slowly heal itself and she will continue to grow and develop into a happy, healthy young lady.

Although Ross and Nicole have medical insurance, as many of you are aware, with medical procedures and recovery of this scale there will still be a significant financial burden, including but not limited to medical costs, multiple trips from Nebraska to California and lost wages for Nicole as she tends to Claire throughout preoperative testing, surgery and recovery.  

We sincerely thank you for any and all contributions you are able to make and your continued prayers for Claire. 

“Granny” Erin Provencher