The Nihei's: Our Story
On April 1, 2008, our 4-year-old daughter, Lauren, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After her biopsy on April 8th it was determined that she had a bithalamic anaplastic astrocytoma with extension into her brain stem.
In the beginning of March we noticed a personality change in Lauren who normally is a very outgoing and happy-go-lucky kid. She became very clingy and shy. She didn't want to talk on the phone anymore, or play on the slide with the other kids at pre-school. By mid-March, Lauren started complaining about headaches. Her pediatrician thought it might be a sinus infection or that she may need glasses. He put her on antibiotics and we made an eye appointment.
A few days later when she started holding her head funny and her headaches returned we insisted on a CT scan. That's when her pediatrician sent us to the ER at Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) for a CT scan, and when our world was turned upside down and our nightmare began...
Story continues at bottom of page
The weekend and Monday was great. It seems the blood transfusion has
really helped. Lauren has been running around and jumping on things,
acting her normal self. However, she may need a platelet transfusion
since it took awhile for the bleeding to stop after they accessed her
port for blood test on Friday. We'll find out tomorrow when we go in
for her bi-weekly blood test.
CHLA is in the process of trying to get our health insurance's
approval to set up home care to do the bi-weekly blood test so that we
won't have to drive up to Los Angeles. This would be so nice since we
don't even see a doctor when they do the blood test anyway.
We also found out at the last doctor appointment that Lauren will have to
have another surgery soon, to place another port to harvest her bone
marrow.
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