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(L-R) Lo Detrich with her parents, Don and Terry.
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Lo Detrich
At just 22 years old, Lauren “Lo” Detrich could barely walk 10 feet. She spent most of her days sitting in a wheelchair, attached to an oxygen tank because of cystic fibrosis. “I was so sick that I didn’t really know what was going on. I was just so focused on trying to breathe.”
For Lo’s mother, Terry, seeing her daughter battle for every breath was “absolutely devastating.” She was used to the bubbly Lo who could make four hours in an airport seem like fun, and to the determined Lo, who at just 9-years-old saw a GREAT STRIDES brochure and hours later, raised more than $400 for CF research because she wanted to win a TV for her room. “That TV is still the best TV in the house,” Terry jokes, as she and Lo both burst out laughing.
Winter in 2005, however, was not a time for jokes. The entire Detrich family, including Lo’s father Don and her older sister Jane, began to worry that their time together might be coming to an end. By December, as Lo’s condition continued to deteriorate, she was placed on the lung transplant list. Terry recalls, “It was like having to live on the edge of your seat…” “With no air,” Lo finishes.
At 11:28 p.m. on June 6, 2006—after hoping and praying and six months of carrying phones everywhere they went, even into the bathroom—the Detrichs got the call. In 20 minutes, Lo was whisked away to the Barnes Jewish Hospital’s operating room. “When I let her go,” Terry says, “they were wheeling her down to surgery. I didn’t know if I would see her again.”
Immediately after surgery, the family walked into the ICU, and Lo—attached to a ventilator—was smiling. “She already had color to her face. It was just miraculous,” Terry remembers. Twenty-four hours later, doctors disconnected the ventilator. Lo walked about two lengths of a football field in the ICU before nurses told her to sit down and rest. Lo exclaims, “I had no idea what it was like to really breathe until that point. I kept thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, how deep does this breath go?’”
A few months after surgery, Lo is now learning to play tennis and resuming her role as “social chair of Tulsa,” as her mother calls her. She’s a household name for many in her town, known for role as a torchbearer for the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and for her indomitable spirit.
While Lo hasn’t returned to her real estate job just yet, she says she is “enjoying her freedom”—running errands, exercising daily and spending time with her friends. She continues to be one of the top fund-raisers for the Sooner Chapter, inspiring more supporters each day to join her friends and family who have already donated millions of dollars to fund vital CF Foundation research.
Lo knows she has battles ahead of her to maintain her health, but she remains her usual happy, optimistic self. “You’ve got to make the best of what you’ve got and just enjoy yourself,” she says. “Life is a gift.”
Posted 12/05/06
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