In June, four–year-old Anna Ives, made the field trip of a lifetime. Anna, a former brain tumor patient at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, participated in the National Association of Children’s Hospitals (N.A.C.H.) Family Advocacy Day in Washington, DC. Anna is the daughter of Zac and Amy Ives of Memphis.

Anna, along with other children and families from across the country, spoke with Congressional lawmakers in support of the children’s hospitals that saved their lives. When they met with these leaders, the Ives shared with them their experience at Le Bonheur Children’s.

Zac Ives was selected by N.A.C.H. as the only parent to write a blog and film a video-log about the Family Advocacy Day experience. The blog began on June 9, and you can follow Zac and Anna through their journey to the nation’s capitol. They were in Washington June 17-19.

Please visit, http://childrenshospitals.typepad.com/anna08 to read their blog.

Anna’s Le Bonheur Story
In February 2007, the Ives’ journey with Le Bonheur began when Zac and Amy noticed something strange about their daughter. Anna’s eyes would roll back into her head for just a few moments, and then she’d be fine. But the incidents kept happening for the two year old, and neurologist Dr. Fred Perkins kept ordering tests, just to investigate a little more. The neurologist found something – a tumor on Anna’s frontal lobe, sitting close to a major vein. The tumor, three centimeters in diameter, was a meningioma, which is generally a benign tumor found in women ages 40 to 70.

Less than two week later, one of the country’s foremost pediatric neurosurgeons, Dr. Frederick Boop, began surgery to remove the tumor. He performed a craniotomy, removing part of Anna’s skull on her forehead and then removing the tumor.

Zac recalls, “I remember being really scared and trying to hold it all together. I remember being really proud of Anna and really close to Amy. I'm glad my parents were there. And I'm extremely grateful to the entire Le Bonheur team, from nurses to surgery team to counselors and everyone in between.”

Anna bounced back quickly from the neurosurgery. “Anna stunned the anesthesiologist by sitting straight up in recovery soon after surgery and announcing she wanted her Mommy. They had never seen a child her age bounce back from a surgery of that magnitude that quickly,” Zac said.

Her speedy recovery continued, after three days of what was supposed to be a week of recovery in the hospital, Dr. Boop asked us if we wanted to go home. “We were ecstatic,” Zac said. A few weeks later she was back at daycare with her friends.

Her parents say Anna is still a little leery of the hospital. “She knows she had a surgery. She remembers getting lots of sharpies (shots) and hugs (blood pressure),” Zac said. “But I think she knows it was a big deal and that Le Bonheur helped her.”

The Ives say they talk a lot about Dr. Boop at their house. “We talk about how he's wonderful how he helped make Anna better. Her face usually lights up when we talk about him. She likes drawing him pictures,” Zac said.