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Audrey’s Story

Site created on January 2, 2011

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We've created it to keep friends and family updated about Audrey Grace, her progress towards seizure freedom, scoliosis surgeries and her battle with hydrocephalus. We are once again battling seizures and working for a solution to her hydrocephalus.

Get started by reading the introductionn to our website, My Story. Visit often to find updated journal entries, photos and write us a note in our guest book. Thank you for taking the time to stay up to date on Audrey and pray for her amazing progress. Below is a little background on Audrey and her years of

Audrey suffered a complete, congenital left MCA infarct inutero. She has been diagnosed with Hemiparesis Cerebral Palsy, seizures, scoliosis and hydrocephalus. Basically, Audrey had a stroke when I was pregnant with her, the cause is unknown, but the brain injury resulted in her CP diagnosis. She is a right Hemi, meaning that she has limited use of her right hand and it does extend to her right leg so she wears two braces to assist with walking.

Audrey is exceeding all of the doctors expectations. This is due to a determined young lady who works so hard to do everything any other kids can, her excellent and caring doctors, lots of therapy and prayers. She attends Westminster Catawba Christian in Rock Hill, SC. She is very active and loves to swim, sing , color and learn amazing facts.

Audrey began to have seizures at 10 months old. Over the years they increased in frequency and severity. She has had many EEGs and had over 10 medications to try to control her seizures. Unfortunately she seizure activity continued to worsen so she had different surgeries to try and control the seizures. At age 6 she had a VNS implanted and at age 8 she had a Left Functional Hemispherectomy. Her left temporal lobe, part of her left frontal & left parietal lobe as well as all the remaining scar tissue from her stroke were removed. Her remaining left hemisphere was then disconnected from her right hemisphere. Following the surgery Audrey did lose additional function in her right arm & hand but recovered completely. The surgery reduced her seizures about 99%! While Audrey was doing fantastic with seizure control for a few years she developed hydrocephalus in 2015.

She has had 5 different surgeries and procedures for her hydrocephalus but has still continued to battle severe pressure headaches that is impacting her quality of life. To work through different treatment options we looked for a second opinion and traveled to Los Angeles, CA for robust testing at UCLA. 6 days prior to our trip Audrey had a seizure lasting 5 minutes at school. She continued to have seizures over the next week. This is devastating news, but we are now in the Ronald Reagan Hospital at UCLA for testing.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Stacy Sindell Cottington — May 29, 2018

We had two doctor appointments today. One was the follow up appointment from our Neurosurgeon and he said Audrey is doing great. The side effects she has experienced were due to medication as well as just the inflammation of her brain from surgeries.

At her eye appointment she does not have damage to her optic nerve - wonderful news! She still has a severe field cut where she is blind on the right half of both of her eyes. Thankfully this did not progress further. So overall her vision is stable, but she should wear bi-focals to read. Audrey is not ready for that step!

Sister Mary took us for a tour of St. Mary's University yesterday. It is a beautiful campus and Audrey really enjoyed the library. She took pictures of all the books she would like for Christmas. We are receiving such good care, compassion and support at the Carondelet Center. The Sisters are enjoying talking to Audrey and Audrey is gaining a lot of from their experience and calming presence. We could not ask for a better location for Audrey's recovery.

We should be home by the weekend. Thank you for all the continued prayers. Audrey is doing so much better.. now if she could just sleep all night!

Love,
Stacy & Audrey

Read More of the journal titled "Great News"

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