Wednesday, July 30, 2008

How's Lauren?

Everybody always asks...How's Lauren? Our blog will keep you all updated.

In March, Lauren started having “seizure like” episodes during the night. As many as 15 to 20 were occurring every night. She continued to get weaker and weaker until she eventually lost the ability to walk. It progressed to the point that she couldn’t even hold her own head up. She was admitted to the hospital and they ran test after test on her and could not figure out what was going on with her. The tests did reveal that the episodes were not seizures. She was placed on IV antibiotics and a couple weeks later, she had a surgery to remove fluid build up in her ear. Our prayer’s were answered and she stopped having the episodes at night and started walking again. She has not only regained all the skills she has lost, but she has surpassed her previous levels in all areas except speech. Lauren is able to sit at a table and feed herself for the first time independently. We used to worry that she was going to throw her food or plate. She isn’t doing that anymore. When we put her in bed now, she stays there and puts herself to sleep. We use to have to stay in the room until she fell asleep. We hardly ever have to change a soiled diaper anymore!!!

Lauren walking on the treadmill tonight before bed (10 minutes on speed 1.5 inclined at 2.5) - you go girl. Normally, she does 15 minutes per day.

Unfortunately, Lauren lost the ability to talk and sing within the past year. Over the last few weeks, she has started saying a few words and singing a line or two of some of her favorite songs. Singing her songs brought her and all of us so much joy as we loved listening to her. We have been so blessed since Lauren’s transplant having such a happy, healthy little girl. This experience has been a good reminder for us and how thankful we need to be for every year we have Lauren. God has blessed us so much with this extra special little girl. She has this amazing spirit that is infectious. At least 90% of the time, Lauren has a beautiful smile on her face and you can’t look at her smile and not help feeling a little better.

It is just amazing to see how calm and content she is now. We can take her to a restaurant and she will sit with us in the booth and eat her food. We take her to movies and she makes it through the whole movie, giggling occasionally. We are just so thankful for how well she is doing.

One of my favorite recent pics...

Monday, July 28, 2008

L.I.F.E.'s One Year Anniversary

I can't believe we are at our one year anniversary. This year has gone by so fast. The business has kept us very busy. We started with a staff of 35 and were seeing almost 100 children on August 6, 2007. As we approach one year later, we have a staff of over 100 people and are seeing over 300 children each week. Praise the lord for the center's success and all the little miracle's we see each week. Every week we seem to have something wonderful happen. A child is able to start walking or says their first word. Seeing a mom's face the first time a child is able to say I LOVE YOU or a dad's face the first time his son is able to ride a tricycle or catch a ball makes it all worth while!!! I am so blessed to have an amazing partner that works 60 plus hours per week. She is an answer to prayer because with the kids I am unable to work near as much. I am able to work from my office at home.

We opened with 7,500 s.f. of office and therapy room space. Less than 2 months ago, we grew another 2,700 s.f., so we are now leasing over 10,000 s.f. and still busting at the seams. The new space has provided some much needed space for our physical and occupational therapy department. Thank you to all of you who have provided generous donations to the center to make this all possible.


Carrie

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Blogging Again

Well, it seems that we are the only family member not blogging, yet so much happens in our lives that everybody wants to know. How is Lauren doing? What's the latest Nathanism? How is L.I.F.E. doing? These are all common questions asked by our family members and close friends. I guess people really do want to know what happens in the Reed household. We used to update on Lauren's website, but Lauren's progress became stable and there wasn't much to report. Since it was Lauren's website, it didn't make sense to report family happenings, so we just didn't. So, lately, our news reached our family members through other family member's blogs. Without any pressure to give in, we have decided the time is right. We enjoy reading our family and friends blogs, and we hope you enjoy ours as well. So...here we are.

We will do our best to keep it up to date, provide pictures, tell you the latest "Nathanism", give the prognosis on Lauren, etc.. We are excited to join the blogging life. It should be a fun ride.

Brian and Carrie