We have always joked that Casey has been a diva since she arrived. She has a way of getting everyone’s attention and making everyone fall in love with her. She has even upstaged some big celebs.
The hospital where Casey was born was known through out the Los Angeles area as one of the celebrity birthing hospitals. The Labor & Delivery unit was top notch and many of the pictures you see in the tabloids of celebs taking home their babies are taken in front of this hospital. Casey was born on a Sunday and the previous Tuesday the hospital was crawling with paparazzi. This was the hospital that delivered Suri Cruise and Brooke Shield’s daughter, Grier. All of the hospital staff was a buzz. Did you get to see Suri Cruise? Where you on the floor when Katie and Brooke delivered? When you would get on the elevators all conversations were about the recent celeb babies. That was until Sunday night.
Casey’s birth was unlike any that most people have or ever will witness. The fact that she and I both survived was nothing short of amazing. The hospital was no longer talking about baby Suri, but now all of the chatter was about “that scary birth”, and can you believe they are still alive. I still remember the first time I got on an elevator to go visit Casey in the NICU after I had been discharged. I was wearing normal clothes so no one knew I was “that mom”. Tim and I boarded the elevator and listened to nurses talk about us! It was kind of surreal. No one said our names, and no one broke any privacy laws, but we knew exactly who they were talking about. The entire hospital was talking about Casey. She upstaged Suri and her role as the diva was only beginning.
At 6 months old Casey went in to get Botox injections. This is common treatment for kids with Cerebral Palsy that have stiff muscles. But, Casey took it up a notch. Casey received her Botox injections in Beverly Hills- of course.
Since Casey can not close her eyes and she doesn’t blink, we are always trying to protect her eyes. Usually we do this with sunglasses. They serve a real health purpose, but they add to her diva status.
Now Casey has added her own paparazzi. For the next 6-8 months a photojournalist, Ilana Panich-Linsman, will be following Casey around. She is doing a project to show how much Palliative Care has changed over the years. She will be following 3 local families around. She will get some pictures of Casey doing all kinds of things (good and bad). Hopefully with a long range of time like this she will be able to show an accurate illustration of Casey’s life. We think this is a great story that needs to be told and we are pretty excited to be part of this project. We are also pretty excited to have some great pictures of Casey when it is all done. She even offered to do some family pics. We are excited to see how this story comes out. A lot of Ilana’s stories (you can see in the “In Print” section on her link) are seen in some big publications like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. Maybe Casey can finally get her record deal out of her new found fame š