This is a follow-up post from yesterday’s post.

September 16, 2015 Lauren spoke at the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce Breakfast as a guest speaker for Donate Life. It was a packed house. We were both nervous.  Before Lauren became very sick, I had a business called Country Look Designs Gift Baskets.  When I had my business, I was a member of this Chamber,  it was a great way to meet other business people in the area.  I did see some familiar faces,which was very nice.

When Lauren was giving her speech, she mention that she had a PA line in her neck (we called it her leash).  This is Lauren with her PA Line in, before transplant .

This is a post Lauren wrote while waiting for her heart:

 I need to have a “PA line” in my neck with two special medicines helping my heart beat stronger to be considered a 1A top of the list. Well I ended up getting the line in on that Friday and things were looking great until about 10:30 at night. My mom was rubbing my feet trying to relax me so I could fall asleep, then all of a sudden my heart rate started going up. Long story short, the ordeal went on until almost two in the morning. My room was filled with doctors and nurses from the ICU, which one of the doctors tried to jiggle the line. Once he had done that, all hell broke loose. I think there was a kink or something because after that a ton of the medicine released and my heart rate went up to 158. I had the x-ray machine in my room, ekgs done, the whole nine yards. My mom was crying because you could literally see my heart beating through my 101 lb body. All of a sudden my nurse told me they were ready to sedate me… and put the shock stickers on me.. yup, they were ready to jolt my ass! Scary! Instead they ended up pulling the line and for the rest of the weekend I was bumped down to a 1B statis. It was a stressful weekend because we were unsure if I was going to be able to get the “LEASH” back in my neck. I call it a leash as a joke because I only have about a 3 foot radius to walk around with it in… Just imagine being 22 and basically being bed bound for 10 days at a time while all your friends are progressing and having fun with there lives, actually imagine being any age and told you had to deal with this.

This picture was taken a couple of months after transplant.

My daughter Lauren endured every complication that could happen during her recovery.  It was a long road for her, but for the most part she had that pretty smile on her face.  She didn’t want to show me her fear, nor did I. Together we stayed strong, because we were going home someday.

This was the day we left the hospital, after 5 months of recovery.  She never gave up, she still had the trac in and also her feeding tube. But we are going HOME !!!!!!!

When we walked through these doors in March of 2013, never thought we would be walking out May 2014.It was a long road, but I told my daughter we would be walking out together, with what we came for.  Thank you GOD…

Lauren & Lynne