This wonderful story of hope could only be brought about by the stength of our daughter Laura, the gifted neurosurgeon and doctors, and the prayers of family and friends. We hope this will encourage other families facing this situation to never give up hope!
Mike, Sherry and Kelly Peterson
My daughter,Laura, was 9 years old and a very active little girl. She played soccer, sang in the choir and was on the honor roll in school. Laura never had headaches or any indication that something was wrong.
On March 15, 1998, Laura was sleeping over at her friends house. At 4:00a.m the mother called to tell me that Laura must have a terrible flu because she was moaning and throwing up. I rushed over and immediately knew something was terribly wrong.
My husband and I rushed her to the hospital and they were extremely concerned because she was unresponsive. They took Laura up for a CAT scan while we waited. A few minutes later a Doctor came in and told us not to panic because they were able to get her heart beating again. They had called in a neurosurgeon.
To make an incredibly long story short, Laura had suffered a catastrophic AVM bleed. The Neurosurgeon told us that he would try to save her life, but there was a good chance she wouldn't survive the surgery. We waited for two hours while they got the bleeding under control. When Laura came out of surgery she was rushed to intensive care. Laura remained in intensive care while we fought the swelling in her brain for 6 days. The entire time she was on life support. On the 7th day an operation was performed to remove the AVM. Laura began to show signs of improvement immediately! She was released from the hospital within 2 weeks!
At this writing, Laura is back to her old self and doing very well in school. Her only permanent disability is she has lost her left peripheral vision (left side neglect.) It has been a year since this happened and now she is eleven years old and has a normal life.
We know that her story is miraculous and we want to share it with people. Never give up hope!