I decided to come back to this blog today and re-read some of it. Tomorrow will be seven weeks since Lauren passed. I don't know why, but it seems like it happened a long time ago. My Mom says the same thing. Don't know what that is.....

I need to call my brother. I keep up with him through my Mom. She says he is staying busy.......taking care of Lance and Pheobe, working a lot, gardening, going to church, etc. If I remember right, Mom says that somehow he feels that Lauren's passing happened a long time ago too. At first, he couldn't sleep much at night. That may still be the case....not sure... I hope not. He hurt his back recently...I hope he is taking care of himself.

I emailed Lauren's boyfriend, Blake, today. I haven't heard from him since I last saw him the night after Lauren's funeral service at the cabin we were all staying. I hope he is OK and that I hear from him. I asked him to get the DVD from the funeral home with all the photos from Lauren's service. Those photos were wonderful. I also asked if he wouldn't mind helping me download them to this site as well as the photos of him and her that he gave her in a photo album for Valentine's Day. That album was such a treasure. He did a really great job on it. Just a peek at the relationship they had.

Well, I have stopped sending out email blasts about Lauren....but if you happen to be reading this or happen upon this blog somehow, please pray for Lauren, my brother, my mom and stepdad (Lauren's grandparents), Lance, Blake............our family. Thank you.

If you would like to send condolences or any healing thoughts, please go online at www.gundrumfuneralhome.com. Thank you.

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, in the next few weeks I am going to try to post two really wonderful photo albums of Lauren. One was given to her by Blake, her boyfriend, on Valentine's Day this year. The photos are of the two of them and are sweet and fun. The other is a DVD pictoral of Lauren's life put together by her mother and the funeral home for Lauren's service.

Well, that's about it for now. I thank all of you for praying for Lauren....and my brother....and our family. There will definitely be hard days ahead for us....but Lauren's hard days are through, and as much as we wish that weren't so, we know it is what is best for her.

We will miss her....but we know that she is always with us.....watching over us...helping us....guiding us.....making us better people. We love Lauren. She is and always will be our inspiration....Our Hero.

Lauren passed on Sunday, March 15th at 1:08PM in the emergency room of Logansport Memorial Hospital. The same hospital she was born in eighteen years ago. The minister who officiated at her funeral was at the hospital when she passed...the same minister who had baptized her years earlier.

I wish her passing had been easier for her. She struggled so. She was such a fighter.

Starting the night before, she was extremely restless and did not sleep. The next morning (Sunday), she seemed to be in pain. Because of the cancer in Lauren's liver, there was always the chance that her liver would eventually not metabolize the drugs effectively. Nevertheless, Dilaudid is all that we had, so we hit the bolus on the Dilaudid pump every 5 minutes to add another 55 ml per hit to the constantly flowing 100 ml per hour. Medicines were supposed to be on their way by hospice courier from Indianapolis. These medicines would put Lauren into a comatose-type state (no pain, no anxiety, no fear) until she passed.

At mid-morning we got the news that the drugs that we had been told were on their way had in fact not even been mixed in the pharmacy in Indianapolis. At that point, the hospice nurse began trying to make arrangements for Care Flight to take Lauren to Riley's Hospital for Children to receive these drugs. But Care Flight only flies critical patients whose lives are trying to be saved, not hospice patients in their final stages of life. So the nurse began trying to find an ambulance to take Lauren to a hospital 40 mintues away in Kokomo to get these medicines. In the midst of all of this, the Dilaudid pump failed. Dilaudid, the only medicine we had on hand.....medicine that we weren't sure was even working that well any longer.....had stopped flowing. Something akin to controlled chaos erupted in that apartment. My brother, my mother, Blake (Lauren's boyfriend), and the hospice nurse began working furiously to re-program the pump....to no avail. My brother then began injecting Fenegren into the central line in her stomach. Her Mom gave her Haldol (or Morphine) under her tongue. Her Mom called 911. Everything was being done to stave off what would be crushing breakthrough cancer pain. The ambulance came in minutes, but seemed to take forever leaving with her.

The hospital didn't have anywhere near the levels of Dilaudid in stock that Lauren consumed in an hour. The emergency room staff finally got another Dilaudid pump running and were quickly preparing her for the 45-60 minute ambulance ride to Riley to get the drugs needed to induce the comatose-state, when someone noticed that she had passed. Sometime in the midst of all the desperate and valiant efforts to help her..........she had passed. At some time while everyone was fighting to help her, she had helped herself.......she had stopped fighting.........she had let go.

Now that we have stopped long enough to think....in looking back, Lauren had become very still and calm right after the pump broke. Now that we think about it, she had stopped flinching, and grimacing, and clenching her fists. Her pain was already gone........her eyes were fixed......she was already floating....

Her funeral was on Wednesday, March 18th. The room was packed....a lot of young people from her high school.....and four staff members from Riley's Hospital for Children that had been her caregivers all of these years. They travelled two hours from Indianapolis after their shifts. Two of them had been with her during her first go-round with cancer while a still a baby. One of them spoke. Her oncology doctor had tried to come but could not make it. He sent a card that was read out loud. Lauren impacted a lot people.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to try to add two photo albums that we have of her.....a lot of fun, madcap photos of a beautiful girl who was a crazy, little free spirit.

I don't really know what else to say....except that we will all miss her. She was an amazing example of a person who lived life big. She was (is) our 'Buggy,' 'Bug Bug,' 'Twinkle Star,' 'Twinkle,' 'Twink,' 'Sweet Tart,' 'Tootsie Roll'.........and we will always love her.

My brother called tonight to tell us that a hospice nurse came to the apartment today and based on the changes that she has seen in Lauren since last week, she feels that Lauren only has 2-3 days to live. My Mom and Stepdad are driving from Illinois to Indiana in the morning. Brian and I are flying out tomorrow at 7:40 AM. We should get to Logansport, Indiana by about 1:00 PM.

She hasn't eaten anything in the past two days.....maybe a little soup or pudding or something....I can't remember what Glenn told me. He said she has barely drank 3 oz. of fluid in that time. She woke up once yesterday and saw her brother Lance. She asked him if he wanted to play a game with her. I don't know if they played.

Earlier today she woke up and everyone was standing at the foot of her bed. The hospice nurse was there. She opened her eyes and smiled at everyone and waved. That's Lauren. She's not speaking today....too weak. When I was on the phone with Glenn tonight he said to me "Its all so sad, just so sad....she tried to talk tonight." All he understood was "I" and "want, want" and "go." He said that her Aunt Tamara and stepmom Phoebe began to cry. He asked them what Lauren had said because he hadn't understood. They said that she said "I don't want to go.' I hope that is not true. We don't want her to go either.....but we don't want her to be afraid. As Glenn and I were talking tonight, they came and got him to go upstairs and be with Lauren because she is very agitated tonight. Hospice had been called back out......and we hung up.

I pray that she has a peaceful, quiet night......of beautiful, tranquil dreams. I really continue to pray that she will beat this as she did when she was five. She has fought so hard for so long. But I also pray for her to find peace and happiness and God's love.

I pray that if this is the end, that she not be afraid. I pray that she is alive when I get there. I pray that my brother will survive this.

If you are reading this, I ask for your prayers too. Thank you.

My Mom and Stepdad's Trip to Indiana

Well, I have gotten behind on doing Blog entries, so I am doing two at once tonight. My Mom and Stepdad went to visit Lauren and my brother Glenn from Saturday, February 28th through Monday, March 2nd. Mom said Lauren slept a lot, but they all watched "Stardust" together ....one of her favorite movies. She ate a little Olive Garden.....her favorite food. As sick as she is (we don't know how she does it), but she loves their soup and salad. She eats only a few bites of it these days though.

On Sunday, Lauren asked my Mom if she was afraid to die. My Mom said 'No.' She asked Lauren what it was that she was afraid of. Lauren told her that she wanted to know what would happen at the very instant that she dies. Would she be all alone......all by herself? How soon would it be before she got to see anybody? My Mom tried to alleviate her fears. She told Lauren that she felt that Jesus himself would probably come and meet her because he will know how long she has suffered and he would recognize her because of the cross she has on her body, similar to the cross he hung upon. (From her numerous surgeries, Lauren has a large cross carved across her chest and stomach.) My Mom and Stepdad also told her of the passing of two of my Stepdad's family members, ie. his father and a 4-year old child who would have been his Aunt. Both reassuring stories. They did what they could to diminish her fears and give her hope.

That night, while playing a game of Phase 10 with everyone, Lauren suddenly felt very badly and layed her head down on the diningroom table. My Mom said that she said "It hurts so bad Dad, it hurts so bad...its awful, just awful." All my brother could say was 'I'm so sorry, Buggy I'm so sorry.' She felt so bad that she couldn't lift her head up. It just siezed her that quickly, incredible breakthrough pain. They hit her bolus repeatedly to get more Dilaudid pumped into her system. Lauren has worn a Dilaudid pump 24 hours a day since August 2008. She receives 20 ml. every hour with 15 ml. expressed each time she hits the bolus. These are high doses. But on this night, it wasn't working. A hospice nurse was called in. She got there within the hour and increased her hourly dose to 30 ml. Lauren was put to bed and my Mom and Stepdad went back to their hotel around midnight.

The next day (Monday), my Mom and Stepdad went to visit with Lauren before they left for home in Illinois. Lauren was pretty perky and visited with them. The increased Dilaudid was working. Although before they left she became nauseas and very tired and had to lay down. She kept telling my Mom how sorry she was to have to lay down while company was there.

She is such a trooper. She tries to visit and play games to the best of her ability. She does it for herself, but I think she does it just as much for us.

Our Trip to Indiana

Brian and I went to visit Lauren, Glenn and Blake between Saturday, February 21st and Tuesday, February 24th. Lauren is hanging in there. She is thin, pale, weak.....she sleeps a lot. She doesn't go much of anywhere....she pretty much stays in the apartment moving between her bed and the couch. She is still lucid and knows all that is going on. We played two games of Rummy Kubes....a few hands of Phase 10 while we were there. She eats like a bird. Although she wants to eat, not much agrees with her. She threw up one time while we were there. It was all green fluid and kept coming and coming and coming. It was an unbelievable amount. I felt so sorry for her. She just wiped her mouth off and laid back down. I offered her some water; she didn't want it. I couldn't have done that. I bought her this really soft, furry, orange body pillow on Monday before we left. I hear from my Mom that she loves it....that she sleeps with it.

At one point around Christmas, she wrote a letter to my brother. In it she told him that she was OK with dying, that she had made peace with God, and that she knew one day she would be dancing in heaven with Jesus. But recently she has been saying that she is not ready to die, that she is scared to die. Of course this is hard for everybody. We don't want her to go, and she doesn't want to go. Darcy with a local Presbyterian church comes to see Lauren. I don't know how often; I don't know if it is enough. But I know that she likes Darcy.

All in all, I am glad that we went to see her, my brother and Blake. We will go back in a few weeks, although Brian told me that my brother told him that by the time a few weeks passes, she may not recognize us.

She is frail and pale, but still funny...and sweet.

My Mom, Stepdad, Aunt Bobbie and I went to visit Lauren, Glenn, Phoebe, and Blake (Lauren's wonderful boyfriend), for a long weekend (January 30th through February 2nd) at their apartment in Indiana. My brother has had to rent a small efficiency apartment in Indiana to keep Lauren close to Rileys Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. He has had to make several spur-of-the-moment trips there in recent months.
We had a wonderful visit. It was good to see Lauren and for all of us to be together. She is frail and pale, but still funny...and sweet. I'm ready to go back for another visit...which will be soon.

Lauren made it past August and into the fall and to her 18th birthday on December 9th…one of her goals.

So here we are into January 2009. Lauren made it past August and into the fall and to her 18th birthday on December 9th…one of her goals. She struggled terribly to keep down the experimental drugs that she was given. Her nausea was terrible. She has lost about 25 pounds since her October surgery. Her recent scans show that the tumors have not started to re-grow in her abdominal cavity two months post-surgery. This is very good news! Nor have her lung tumors increased. Her liver, however, seems to have gotten worse with about 1/3 of it compromised and non-functioning because of tumors. She is now taking the next two drugs in her experimental treatment regimen. Her nausea has decreased greatly, but now she is experiencing a lot of pain, sometimes excruciating.

Lauren entered the hospital on Sunday, January 4, 2009 due to extreme pain.

Lauren entered the hospital on Sunday, January 4, 2009 (her Grampa Glover's birthday) due to extreme pain. She has been there ever since. She has experienced tremendous pain this past week and is on a lot of pain meds. They make her delirious much of the time. They believe that Lauren had a bacterial infection that is now gone. They also believe that her enlarged liver is pressing on a nerve bundle and causing the extreme pain she is experiencing. They are working daily to try and find a way to manage her pain. It was also found that the IV fluids have not been going into her veins, but into her abdomen and lungs. Her abdomen is swollen to the size of a basketball and very hard. She is having difficulty breathing. However, she has begun taking meds that will re-direct the fluid to her veins which need to stay hydrated. In speaking with my brother today, that med appears to be working. Through all of this she continues to take her next round of experimental drugs.

We celebrated Christmas on January 3rd

We celebrated Christmas on January 3rd with Lauren at her Dad's house in Illinois. She opened her gifts laying in bed. She's cute as a bug in all of our Christmas photos. In fact, her Dad (my brother) calls her 'buggy,' short for ladybug. I call her Sweet Tart because she is. She slept a lot that day, but when a lot of visiting friends and family left, she wrapped her little body in a warm blanket and wandered downstairs to visit. It was nice.

Lauren is a fighter, always has been…and she wants to live.

Lauren has always been very strong and persevering through all of her lifelong surgeries, and chemo and radiation therapies, but for the first time, she has bouts of despondency. Her family and her medical team feel her incredibly positive attitude has kept her going all of these years. In fact, she keeps all of us going! She is a tremendous fighter and a very positive person.








Lauren and her Dad.

A message sent by Lauren a week after her surgery

Below is a text message that Lauren sent to me about a week after her surgery telling me of her frightening experience.

hey there you! long time no talk. my phone was toasted, guess they have had
quite a few recalls on the blackberries bc of the ear pieces not working. i have
been so pooped lately from surgery and all. that day was quite an intense
day!!.. one of the most intense of my life. billmyere, the surgeon, told me that
she wasnt sure if she could even do the surgery on me bc of where the tumor was
lying.but the only way for her to know was to go in and look- meaning if she
couldnt she would sew me up and i would morethan likely bleed to death
-internally. 5 minutes to make the decision.. horrible! the room was full of
tears and i asked them what they all thought i should do. some people couldnt
say, but doing the surgery ruled out, so i prayed to God and that's what i did.
and next thing you know i am waking up, being told that a 5lb tumor, shaped like
a football was taken out of my belly and was also lying down in my chest cavity
too. the news was wonderful to know that i had made it! oh, i thanked God! do
every day :)

After her surgery, a piece of her tumor was overnighted to a lab in Long Beach, California that tested 16 different chemotherapy drugs on the tumor to see if any worked. Seven drugs were found that had some effect on the tumor. We were thrilled. Lauren's tumors have become so resistant to chemotherapy that we were worried that none might be found. These are all very experimental drugs, and honestly, the one that worked the best is commercially unavailable in the United States…..very discouraging.

On October 20, 2008, Lauren underwent abdominal surgery to remove a tumor that had become massive and was causing extreme pain.

At 12:00 noon, my Mom called very upset and said that Lauren had just gone into surgery and that she might die during surgery. This was very hard to hear. Right before Lauren was to go into surgery that morning, the surgeon reviewed the most recent scans and then came into her hospital room and told her mother and father (my brother), that the tumor was very large and had grown behind her kidney and all the way up her back and attached itself to her aorta. The surgeon said that there was a chance that Lauren would bleed to death during surgery, and that she would not be able to save her. Of course, this was terrifying. They then talked to Lauren about the situation. The surgeon said that this was a difficult decision to make so quickly and offered to reschedule the surgery to the following week. My brother said that they did not have that much time. Lauren called for a vote. The surgeon did not vote; Lauren's mother voted no, and everybody else (Lauren, my brother, Lauren's boyfriend, Lauren's stepmother, Lauren's brother, the oncologist and the social worker) voted yes. So……Lauren played a few games of hangman with her brother and father, kissed and hugged everybody, and rolled herself down the hall in her wheelchair and into the operating room. She is such an incredibly brave person.

Two hours into the surgery a nurse came out and told everyone that the tumor had been unwrapped from the front and the sides of the kidney, and the surgeon was now beginning to work around the back side and up to the aorta…..the part that she was afraid of. A few hours later, they let everyone know that the tumor had been successfully removed. It had grown all the way up to the aorta and was pressed against it but had not yet attached! Miraculous, really!! The tumor was as large as a football and weighed 5 pounds. The surgeon said that it would have killed many other people, but Lauren has more room internally because she has fewer organs. What if they had waited a week? Chances are that the tumor might have attached. Obviously, the right decision was made…..God was watching out for Lauren.

August 25, 2008 was my brother Glenn's birthday. On that day, Lauren started feeling badly.

The next day was worse, and she went to the emergency room in her little hometown of Logansport, Indiana. On Wednesday, August 27th, she was admitted to Riley's. A scan revealed the abdominal cavity tumor had grown another 50% since her last scan on August 12th, and a new tumor was seen. At that time, a staff member stated that she felt she had only about 4 weeks to live. We had been looking into other treatment options and found the University of Michigan through clinicaltrials.gov. They were performing a clinical trial in which children with Wilms, but in remission, could receive a bone marrow transplant and an experimental cancer vaccine. In the hopes of entering the trial, Lauren was given near-lethal doses of two chemotherapy drugs. She did not fare well. For the first time, chemotherapy really put her down. She ended up with hemorrhagic cystitis…she could not urinate and ended up with huge clots in her bladder that had to be forced out. She was in extreme pain. In the end, scans revealed that this massive dose of chemotherapy had not worked……and had damaged her bladder. Needless to say, Lauren did not qualify for the U of M clinical trial.

On the first day of her senior year, cancer diagnosed again

On August 12, 2008, the first day of her senior year, she was once again diagnosed with cancer. It was found in her right lung, her liver, her abdomen and near her rectum. At that time, a staff member at Riley's stated that she only had about about 6-8 weeks to live and recommended hospice.

Then in June 2007, Lauren felt pain in her pelvic region and was bleeding. She was diagnosed with a vaginal mass….again Wilms. On what was to have been the first day of her Junior year, Lauren underwent a total hysterectomy on August 14, 2007. Doctors removed her uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries and a portion of vaginal sidewall. She again underwent radiation treatments. In September 2007, her doctors felt that she had had a complete response to therapy and again showed no evidence of disease.

Wilms reappears after 10 years in remission

In June 2006, after 10 years in remission and at the age of 15, Lauren was again diagnosed with Wilms Disease. Her cancer came back with a vengeance. This was a tremendous shock to our family and to the medical team at Riley's Hospital for Children who had treated her as a child. After remission, recurrence is very rare for this type of cancer. She and her doctors are in a tremendous battle to fight this form of late-stage, childhood kidney cancer in a person of her age.

After almost a year of chemotherapy, radiation and surgical treatments, the cancer seemed to have been eliminated from both lobes of her lungs, both lobes of her liver, her right kidney, and from a space between her spine and lungs. Surgery removed a cancerous left kidney and spleen. In March 2007, there was no evidence of disease found in scans of her abdomen, pelvis, and chest.

But at the age of three, a large mass was found in her left kidney

But at the age of three, a large mass was found in her left kidney. She underwent further chemotherapy treatment and had a portion of her left kidney removed. In June 1994, at the age of five, she went into remission. She had ultrasounds every three months until the age of 10, with no recurrences.

Diagnosed with cancer at 13 months old

In January 1992, at 13 months old, Lauren was diagnosed at Riley's Hospital for Children (Indianapolis) with Wilms' Tumor, an early childhood kidney cancer. Lauren was an exceptionally rare case as the tumors were in both kidneys. After a year of chemotherapy, Lauren appeared to be doing well.