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When 14-year-old Lauren Adair of Emerald Hills was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease that took away her ability to speak and walk, her world changed in an instant. But even as she faced a 12.5-hour brain surgery, she held tightly to one unwavering goal: to reclaim her normal life.
“I just really wanted to be able to run, do lacrosse—be like a normal kid in high school like everyone else,” Adair said.
After a sudden brain bleed revealed a rare and life-threatening condition called an arteriovenous malformation, more commonly known as an AVM, Adair underwent a high-risk brain surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. Her long recovery included relearning how to walk and speak, but just months later, she was back on the field playing her favorite sport, Lacrosse.
Adair was recently honored as one of the patient heroes through the Patient Hero Program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, which celebrates children who show extraordinary strength while receiving care. According to Megan Alpers-Raschefsky, director of creative services and lead of the program, a select few are chosen each year as Summer Scamper Patient Heroes to represent the hospital’s largest fundraiser—a family-friendly 5K and festival.
Adair perfectly embodied the spirit of strength, resilience and hope the program celebrates, Alpers-Raschefsky said.
Adair first experienced symptoms in April 2023 while on a family vacation in Palm Springs. She had a severe headache that wouldn’t go away, followed by vomiting. The next day, she realized she couldn’t say her ABCs past the letter C.
“I could think of what I was trying to say, but it just couldn’t come out of my mouth,” she said.
A CT scan at the emergency room revealed a brain bleed. Further imaging, including an MRI, showed she had an AVM.
Adair was eventually referred to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, where Dr. Cormac Maher, chief of pediatric neurosurgery, treated her along with a team of other doctors and experts.
An AVM, Maher explained, is an abnormal cluster of blood vessels in the brain where arteries connect directly to veins, bypassing the tiny capillaries that usually reduce blood pressure. This creates dangerously high pressure in the veins, raising the risk of bleeding and stroke-like symptoms.
“Most often, people don’t know they have an AVM until it’s either accidentally diagnosed, or they have a seizure or a brain hemorrhage, which is a kind of stroke,” Maher said.
Maher described Adair’s AVM as “challenging” due to its proximity to critical areas of the brain responsible for speech and movement. Initially, some doctors believed surgery would be too risky. But after further testing, the team of doctors working on Adair’s case determined the AVM could be removed.
There were three main treatment options: surgery, which involves physically removing the AVM; radiosurgery, which uses precisely targeted radiation over several years; and endovascular treatment, in which a catheter delivers glue-like material to block blood flow to the AVM. For Lauren, surgery offered the best chance for a cure.
Before surgery, doctors warned Lauren to avoid raising her heart rate, which could risk another brain bleed.
“It was just hard for all of us emotionally,” her mom added. “Because at any moment, the AVM could burst.
That meant giving up running, many everyday activities and Lacrosse, a sport Adair had enjoyed playing for several years and was hoping to continue as part of her high school team. She experienced intense anxiety and even panic attacks in the months leading up to the operation.
“I kind of couldn’t do normal things,” she said.
Three months after first experiencing symptoms, Lauren underwent the surgery.
Performed in a specially equipped operating room, the team used a high-powered microscope and computer-guided navigation to locate and carefully remove the AVM, working millimeter by millimeter around sensitive areas of the brain, Maher told this publication.
“She’s so strong and brave,” Jenni said.
Post the surgery, Adair had to relearn how to speak. Her voice was raspy from the breathing tube, and at first she struggled to say even basic words—she recalls mispronouncing “cabinet” and practicing with labels taped around the house to relearn the names of everyday objects. “Fridge,” “cabinet,” and others became small but powerful milestones in her recovery.
Physically, the recovery was equally grueling. For two weeks after surgery, Lauren used a wheelchair, then a walker. She remembers the turning point vividly—one day at home, she simply decided she was “sick of the wheelchair” and stood up to walk on her own. She also returned to writing, something she couldn’t do at first because of lingering numbness in her right hand. She dropped her phone often and struggled to hold a pencil, but slowly, through occupational therapy and daily effort, she regained that skill too.
She stayed home that summer, with her family and dog, focusing on healing.
But perhaps the most inspiring part of her recovery was her return to lacrosse. Exactly three months after surgery, she was cleared to return to play. She started with solo wall-ball practice, wearing a bike helmet, and then attended open-field sessions before tryouts. She made the JV team at St. Francis High School. Getting back on the field was more than just a return to sport—it was Lauren’s way of reclaiming her life.
According to Maher, if an AVM is completely removed, “the patient is cured forever.” However, in rare cases, children under 18 can experience regrowth. Lauren will continue to undergo annual MRIs until the age of 25 as a precaution.
Today at 16, she still has some numbness in her right hand and foot and occasional speech slips—but she’s back to being a teenager, playing lacrosse, going to school, and enjoying the everyday life she fought so hard to regain.
“She just dealt with it and lived her life,” Jenni said. “She’s a miracle.”
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