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Follow
my plane to read 'bout my new book. You'll love it!!! 
Hi! My name is Loren
McClelland and you have landed on my homepage. I wish I could tell
you this is just a page for having fun, but it isn't. It's really
to keep people updated on how I am doing. Maybe later I can add
some fun stuff. There are links above (right under Loren's Place)
and links to the left for you to click on.
I am one year old (give or take a few months) as of the day I created
this page. I was born on April 6, 1998 and started my travel adventures
on April 8, 1998.
 No,
I didn't take my first vacation, although I had worked hard enough
at that point to earn one.
Actually, I was born with a problem called pulmonary hypertension
and the best way to keep me alive was putting me on an ECMO (extracorporeal
membrane oxygenation) machine. It's kinda like a heart-lung machine,
but don't tell medical people that. You may get a lecture on why
it isn't a heart-lung machine. All I know is that it kept me alive.
Anyway, the only machine near me was in Little Rock, Arkansas. So,
the people from Arkansas Children's Hospital put the machine on
this cool helicopter and flew it down to Shreveport where I was
born. They hooked me up and flew me back to Little Rock. I wasn't
even a week old and already I got to do stuff my daddy had never
done. Not that he ever wants to get on a helicopter, but at least
I am one up on him.
I spent a month in Little Rock and the next three months in and
out of Willis Knighton South Hospital in Shreveport. I made alot
of friends there, but the best one was my doctor, Bharti Manchandia.
She's pretty cool.
 Okay!
I admit it! I'm not the one typing all of this. I had to get daddy
to do this since I don't know how to spell yet - even with a spell
checker. That doesn't matter because I am the one telling him what
to write - sort of.
Anyway, things went OK for a while. I had alot of problems, but
I progressed and got better. Then, in February, I took a test and
failed it. Since doctors call bad results positive, maybe I passed.
Either way, it was a loss for me.
The doctors found out I have a genetic disorder called Muccopolysaccharidosis.
Sounds like the name of a song doesn't it? The only way to fix most
of the problems caused by Muccopolysaccharidosis (MPS for us normal
people) is with a bone marrow transplant. There are some other treatments
being tested that look promising, but mommy and daddy thought the
transplant was the best thing to try.
That's why I put this homepage thing together. A new friend of mine,
Jenna, did this and I thought it was a good idea. It's a whole lot
easier than calling a zillion relatives each day to keep them informed.
I hope you like it.
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