Lucas’s Story

Site created on January 23, 2020

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On August 7th, 2019, the Hougom family was blessed with Lucas Leroy.  He was born 3 weeks early and weighed only 5 pounds, 7 ounces.  Shortly after he was born, the doctors realized his body was covered in red dots called petechiae.  Within hours they did blood work and transferred him to the NICU.  Lucas was diagnosed with congenital CMV and spent 9 long days in the hospital before finally being able to go home.  Since then Lucas has continued to ride a continuous roller coaster with hundreds of blood draws and appointments and more hospital admissions than we ever could have imagined. Lucas has been receiving care at UW-Madison Children's hospital which is about two and a half hours from home.  This has required many trip back and forth and lots of time away from their two year old daughter Valarie. Lucas's mom Jenny has also not been able to return to work due to all of the care that Lucas requires right now. 

The main aspect that the CMV has affected is Lucas's liver.  It has sustained too much damage that it will be unable to repair itself.  Lucas will need a liver transplant.

Newest Update

August 09, 2020

Journal entry by Jenny Hougom —

Lucas turned one this past week! We wanted to share a video Tyler put together of the journey of his first year!

Read More of the journal titled "August 09, 2020"
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