"You know, you love your kids so much," said Mark Lackey, Lauren's dad.
It's painful for Mark Lackey to talk about the time he almost lost his daughter Lauren.
"I kinda felt it, but I couldn't explain it," Lauren, who went into coma, told Ivanhoe.
Her mom says one night while doing homework, "Just wrote down random letters," said Sandy Lackey.
Two days later, Lauren slipped into a coma. The blood flow out of her brain was mostly blocked, forced through a single channel below the surface of her face.
P. Roc Chen, MD, FACS, Cerebrovascular Neurosurgeon at the Mischer Neuroscience Institute, told ABC30 that it's like an, "Eight laned highway driving through one lane."
On top of that, abnormal connections between vessels created short circuits in her brain. The two problems caused severe swelling that could kill Lauren, but open brain surgery could lead to a deadly bleed. So, Dr. Chen snaked a catheter from her groin to her head and with glue that's sometimes used to help stop brain aneurysms from rupturing, he carefully sealed off the short circuits. After the treatment, Lauren's brain pressure started going down right away.
"I felt really good. I felt normal," Lauren said.
She's back to normal and back with the ones who love her.
"She's our little miracle child," Mark explained.
It took two five-hour treatments to seal off the short circuits in Lauren's head. Meanwhile, Dr. Chen says the blood from her brain still drains through the vessel in her face, but with blood thinners he says she can expect to have a normal quality of life.
If you would like more information, please contact:
P. Roc Chen, MD, FACS, FAANS
Cerebrovascular/Endovascular Neurosurgeon
Mischer Neuroscience Institute
(713) 704-7100
