We have survived Ana's appointment with the pediatric neurologist in Rochester and feel like we at least have some of our questions answered. We started the morning bright and early with Ana's EEG appointment. I was satisfied immensely with how they dealt with Ana and their attention to detail to make sure that their test was done to the best of their ability - I did not feel this way when she had it done in Spencer. I must say Thank You again to our friends Eric and Nickie for allowing us to stay at their house, and to Eric for helping Chad keep Ana up for half that night so she would be good and tired for the test. Whatever you guys did worked...she was asleep within 2 minutes of laying down on the bed!!
We met later in the day with the doctor and she was wonderful - her name was Dr. Wirrell. She explained things so well and was very patient with us. This is what we know: she has no malformation of the brain or tumors on her brain...halelujia!! Because of the placement of her seizures, it can be determined that the right frontal lobe of the brain is where the seizures are being stemmed from. Since there is no family history of seizures, we can only hope that she will outgrow them, but know that there are no serious side effects of her medication IF she should need to be on them indefinitely. Also, since there is no family history, we went in to great detail about my pregnancy, delivery, and medical history of the girls. Ana was born with a birthmark on her head (which will need to be removed when she hits puberty because hormones cause it to become inflamed) and we were very surprised to find out that this type of birthmark has been linked to seizures!!! Nothing was mentioned of that when we took her to a dermotologist as a baby to have it looked at and honestly, I tend to forget about it now because her hair covers it - thanks to Chad for remembering that she had it!!! Dr. Wirrell was very intriqued because her birthmark is on the left side of her head, which doesn't coorrelate to her seizures being from the right side of her brain! So, Ana continues to be a medical mystery!! There is still a 20-30% chance that she could have a grand mal seizure at some point, but as she said - we had a greater chance of having a car accident going to Rochester than she will ever have of having that type of seizure. She did give us lots of information as to how to handle things if that should happen, so that was reassuring. There is also about a 40% chance that she will begin to have seizures again while on this medicine since she's on such a low dose, but her dosage will just be increased if that happens. We do know that she will continue to be on her medicine for another two years before she is re-evaluated to see if we can ween her off. Needless to say, our greatest hope is that she no longer has any seizures (just as she is now) during that two year period which hopefully means that she may have outgrown them. We plan to meet with Dr. Wirrell once a year, or more if needed because of the reoccurrance of seizures, for as long as needed.
Again, a special thank you to Nickie and Eric - we had a wonderful time with you guys, we just wish it could have been longer. And thank you also to my sister, Ang, who was planning to stay with Kale. Your guys' willingness to help means so much - more than you will ever know. I hope I haven't forgotten anything but I guess if I have, I'll just post another short message!! Have a safe and wonderful fall!!
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