7.11.2009

Update on Luke

It has been a busy spring and early summer for all of us at The Luke Pier Foundation. We finished the softball tournament in May and are happy to announce that we raised over $2,000.00 for our cause! Thank you to all of our supporters and teams. And a special thank-you to our sponsors, Community One Bank, Piedmont Natural Gas and Boatsman, Gillmore & Associates!

Luke had another appointment at Johns Hopkins a couple of weeks ago. He received good news about the aortic aneurysm (dilated aortic root) - it is still a good size for his body size and age! They want to continue monitoring him, of course, but he is okay for the time being.

Luke will need a different kind of surgery within the next 12 months, though. He will return to Johns Hopkins to undergo the Nuss procedure. Some people who have connective tissue disorders also develop pectus excavatum (or sunken chest). They want to perform the operation on Luke before he gets much older. Because he is still young (he's 15 now), his bones are still pliable and will adapt to the operation much better than if they were to postpone it. We are thrilled that he will have the opportunity to fix his chest and cannot wait to see the results. We will let everyone know more as the surgery gets closer.

We will be working on the plans for our next fundraiser in the coming weeks. If you have any ideas about fundraisers that you think would be successful and draw a crowd, please leave a comment or send an email to info@thelukepierfoundation.org.

As always, thank you for your support!