Below is the original post entitled "Another side of Lane and the SC Family":
About 2 years ago, at 11.5 years old, my youngest daughter started having absence seizures. They are a form of epilepsy, last 30 to 60 seconds and were completely debilitating, leaving her drained and disoriented. Medications were ineffective at controlling them and after a series of tests it was determined that she was a candidate for a surgery that would remove her right temporal lobe and hopefully with it, the seizures. My daughter led the charge for the surgery as she hated being the girl taking meds and having seizures. Not easy to be a 14 year old girl headed for a surgery where they are going to remove a large portion of your brain. Six weeks before the surgery, she was having a rough go, often in tears, struggling with her fate. Like many young Trojan fans, she looked up to Matt Barkley as being the "perfect man".
I decided to reach out to Kiff to see if he could get Matt to sign something for my daughter to encourage her as she faced her upcoming battle. His response was immediate....YES. He asked for her cell phone number. An hour and a half later, we were eating dinner at CPK and my daughter was very teary and sad even though we were in a public place. Suddenly her phone buzzed and she looked down and got this funny look on her face, that blossomed thru the tears into a huge smile. She looked up and said incredulously, "Matt Barkley just sent me a video". The video was a close up of Matt speaking very directly to my daughter and encouraging her to "fight on...truly fight on". I have always loved Matt, but this put him permanently into the stratosphere for me. I called Kiff to thank him and he said "what else can we do?" I told him he had already done enough... my daughter was beaming, had watched the video a 100 times and was drawing strength from Matt's encouragement.
The next day she got another text... this time a video from Kiff and Marquis Lee encouraging her to fight on and be strong. The next day she got a long email from Pete Carroll about visualizing success and competing thru he process. In the course of 3 days she went from weepy to steely eyed.
On the day of her surgery, the last thing she did as they wheeled her away was flash the fight on sign. Watching your child wheeled away into a room full of mask wearing strangers, bone saws and needles, is not something I would wish on anyone, but her courage was amazing. After an 8 hour surgery, she was admitted to the ICU. In the ICU my phone buzzed, I missed the call. An hour later I checked he message and heard Pat Haden saying he understood my daughter had just had surgery and that the whole Trojan family was pulling and praying for her. Senior AD Mark Jackson called repeatedly checking in. The next day... my phone rang again... I did not recognize the number and answered to "hi this is Matt Leinert... I hear Cailin just had surgery..." Later that evening Keyshawn called and wanted to come by later in the week to visit. A care package showed up from Johnnie Morton. Over the coming week, the messages just kept coming... Tony Boselli, Ryan Kalil, Willie McGuinest, Carson Palmer, a virtual who's who of the Trojan world. Max Nikias even posted on her caring bridge site.
We often hear talk of the Trojan family, but our family just lived it. It was an awesome and humbling thing to see in action. Best part of the story is the surgery was successful...no more seizures and not a minute of therapy needed. She was a straight A kid going in and should be a straight A Kid moving forward... albeit with a slightly smaller and healthier brain.
