Our Stories: Lauryn

Intensive Therapy Builds Strength and Determination

Lauryn smiles as she enters the Intensive Therapy area at Courage Center Burnsville. She’s using her walker and is escorted by her dad and her two siblings. As Lauryn and her therapist, Monica, prepare for the challenges of a three-hour therapy session, her brother and sister run off to play.

Lauryn’s father, Dave, is a committed dad. He has to be. He has four-year old triplets, one of whom has a disability. Unlike her brother and sister, Lauryn was born with the left half of her brain underdeveloped, a condition called hemimegalencephaly that caused her to suffer 200-300 seizures per day.

When all attempts at treating the seizures medically failed, Lauryn’s parents made the difficult decision to have their daughter undergo a hemishpherectomy at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The surgery removed the damaged half of her brain and greatly reduced the seizure activity, but left her without much movement ability on the right side of her body.

Lauryn has been having physical therapy sessions several times a week at Courage Center Forest Lake, plus two or three a week at school. Her goal is to build her core body strength and maximize the limited capabilities of her right arm and leg so that she can stand, walk and move without assistance.

When Courage Center Burnsville began offering Intensive Therapy, Lauryn’s therapist at Forest Lake, suggested it might give her a jump start on building her core strength. Designed for children with cerebral palsy and other neuromuscular disorders, Intensive Therapy using the TheraSuit Method*, is given in three-week sessions of three hours per day, five days per week.

Intensive Therapy challenged Lauryn to move, develop muscle memory and focus on standing straight.

“I think she’s gotten stronger,” said Dave. “It’s a small but important step. We won’t really know until later how much the Intensive Therapy helped. I think it’s helped her develop more of a work ethic and learn to fight through the tough stuff. I’m pretty positive she’s gotten a lot out of it. We’re fortunate to be in the Courage Center system.”

Dave believes that lots of therapy for Lauryn while she’s young and growing will give her the best chance of realizing her full potential. With that in mind, she’ll be doing some traveling during summer 2009. After completing Intensive Therapy at Courage Center Burnsville, she’s off to another physical therapy program at UCLA in Los Angeles and a reunion of hemispherectomy patients at Johns Hopkins. Then its back to school and therapy at Courage Center Forest Lake.