a little history about me...
my name is lauren riley and i was born on a saturday on september 20th, 2008. the next day i was diagnosed with hip dysplasia and microcephaly- and i also failed my newborn hearing tests. i met with lots of doctors in the first year of my life to help fix my hips and to get a hearing aid for my left ear. i found out that microcephaly means that my head will not grow very big and because of this i may not be able to do many of things that my older sister and brother can do- like walk or talk well.
in janurary of 2010 i began to have painful spasms in my hips and legs and started losing my motor coordination and skills. after lots of tests it was determined that i have ceberal palsy and a denegerative neurological disorder that seems to affect the way my myelin grows. what that means is that signals that cross my nerves are slowed down so that it's harder for me to do stuff- again like crawling, walking or talking very much. mylein growth can be related to a lack of vitamin B12 so even though my CBC counts looked normal the doctor's thought that i might be having trouble utilizing the B12 in my body so i started receiving muscular injections 1x/week to see if that would help me. i am regaining many of my motor skills and hopefully my next MRI will show that my myelin is growing again. there's still a lot that i do not understand about my body and brain but we'll continue to work with the doctors and hope that answers are found so that i can do the most with what i have been given.
this blog was created by my mom to keep my friends and family informed about what's new with me. thanks for checking it out.
love,
lauren & family
