Lucy Knapp

First post: Dec 1, 2019 Latest post: Jan 13, 2020
Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


When Thomasina was 25 weeks pregnant she went for a routine ultrasound. During the appointment the ultrasound tech called the doctor in to look at some abnormalities. The doctor immediately made us an appointment with a specialist at North Memorial and we were in their office in less than an hour. The techs there did another ultrasound and the doctor there informed us of what was going on. Lucy had developed a CPAM, or Congenital Pulmonary Airway Malformation. During the development of her lungs, a fairly large portion of her right lung was affected and turned into several cysts instead of healthy tissue. The doctor painted a pretty grim picture of what was possible including heart failure and prenatal surgery. Fortunately, Lucy wasn't the worst case scenario but she doesn't have the best case scenario either. 


On April 4th, 2019 Lucy was born. She needed a little help breathing at first but she got the hang of it pretty quickly. We spent four nights in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, NICU, where the awesome staff at Masonic Children's Hospital made our time there as easy as possible. They really were amazing and we recommend them to everyone. 


Over the last few months the doctors have kept a very close eye on Lucy's lungs through chest x-rays and a CT scan. The CT scan revealed that there were more cysts and the affected area was larger than we thought at first. We have the most amazing surgeon who has personally taken care of us throughout this whole process. We met with him on November 4th to go over what the removal process entails. December 12th, at 7:30 in the morning, Lucy will have a lobectomy to remove the affected portion of her lung. The description of a lobectomy is pretty gruesome so I will spare you the details, but it will be a rather lengthy surgery and will require us to stay at the hospital for at least five days with at least two in the ICU. Thankfully the outlook is good with no limitations in the future. The human body is truly amazing and the healthy portion of the lung will eventually grow to fill in the space that is made by removing the CPAM. With any surgery there is risk of bleeding and infection and there are a few other issues that they will watch closely as well. 


Thomasina had the fantastic idea to create a caring bridge site to keep everyone up to date and take some of that pressure off of us. Please keep Lucy in your thoughts and prayers and we will try to update the site as often as possible. 

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