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
I took last Thursday off (Oct. 2nd) and we all went to Disneyland. This would be our last chance to go before Lauren started her next round of chemo (which we started on Friday). One of our goals was to go see the princesses, which was only an hour wait. Luckily mommy waited in line while the girls got their faces painted. The first princess we saw was Lauren's favorite, Sleeping Beauty. Normally each child only gets a minute or so with each of the three princesses, however, Sleeping Beauty was so cool she spent over 5 minutes with the girls. She even sat down and had a fake tea party with them. Unfortunately my camera was running out of batteries.
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