Lauren's Heart
Donation protected
Lauren was born with hypoplast left heart syndrome. She has had two heart transplants and is currently two years out of her second transplant.
Her parents started noticing that she was out of energy and got tired easily, so they took her for a checkup at Arkansas Children's Hospital last Thursday. After doing an echo, one of her doctors noticed that her heart function wasn't good at all. Her doctors decided to do a heart cath to make sure that it was just rejection, not that her heart was failing so that they knew the best way to treat her.
After a successful heart cath, she came back to her room and her parents noticed that she was blue around her mouth. One of her nurses immediately ripped open her gown and realized that she wasn't breathing. They started chest compressions and called code, and continued compressions and shocking her for about 30 minutes before her doctor came in to hook her up to ECMO, which would help her heart to relax and build it's function back up. She was sedated so that she could rest and let the ECMO do the work.
On Friday, the doctors noticed that her belly was swelling and found two small bleeds in her spleen and a larger bleed in her stomach from the chest compressions. They went to internal radiology where they were able to coil the bleeds and stop the bleeding.
On Sunday morning, her doctors decided that her heart function had improved and took her off of ECMO so she is currently breathing on her own.
Lauren is still sedated and has had some problems with her kidneys due to the medications she was put on, and she has a long road ahead of her with steroids and continuing to build her heart function back up. She will be immunosuppressed while she is on such a high dose of steroids.
The family has no timeline on how long they will be in the hospital. They will be needing money for food, gas and bills while Lauren is in the hospital. Her mom stays up there with her, but her dad and sister take turns going up to the hospital to be with them so gas is a big issue.
Anything you can donate will be much appreciated. We would like to help alleviate the cost of living up there for them because they are already worried about so much and money shouldn't be one of those things.
Thank you.
Her parents started noticing that she was out of energy and got tired easily, so they took her for a checkup at Arkansas Children's Hospital last Thursday. After doing an echo, one of her doctors noticed that her heart function wasn't good at all. Her doctors decided to do a heart cath to make sure that it was just rejection, not that her heart was failing so that they knew the best way to treat her.
After a successful heart cath, she came back to her room and her parents noticed that she was blue around her mouth. One of her nurses immediately ripped open her gown and realized that she wasn't breathing. They started chest compressions and called code, and continued compressions and shocking her for about 30 minutes before her doctor came in to hook her up to ECMO, which would help her heart to relax and build it's function back up. She was sedated so that she could rest and let the ECMO do the work.
On Friday, the doctors noticed that her belly was swelling and found two small bleeds in her spleen and a larger bleed in her stomach from the chest compressions. They went to internal radiology where they were able to coil the bleeds and stop the bleeding.
On Sunday morning, her doctors decided that her heart function had improved and took her off of ECMO so she is currently breathing on her own.
Lauren is still sedated and has had some problems with her kidneys due to the medications she was put on, and she has a long road ahead of her with steroids and continuing to build her heart function back up. She will be immunosuppressed while she is on such a high dose of steroids.
The family has no timeline on how long they will be in the hospital. They will be needing money for food, gas and bills while Lauren is in the hospital. Her mom stays up there with her, but her dad and sister take turns going up to the hospital to be with them so gas is a big issue.
Anything you can donate will be much appreciated. We would like to help alleviate the cost of living up there for them because they are already worried about so much and money shouldn't be one of those things.
Thank you.
Organizer and beneficiary
Samantha Lester
Organizer
Sheridan, AR
Jeannie Reynolds
Beneficiary
