I haven't had the courage to post here very often because when I try to tell this story over (and over) again I just get angry. After Abe had his ride to the Children's Hospital in October in an ambulance I thought that maybe we'd have answers. We went through a 44 hour VEEG and then a 22 hour Ambulatory EEG and had no events or episodes that we noted. I went all that time and all of those weeks thinking that they had just disproved seizures. WEEKS went by and we heard no news. None. At my follow-up appointment, I was told that his EEG was "abnormal" but I needed to re-schedule the next appointment with my husband so he could go over the EEGs with us. So we did. It was then that he told us that he has "Generalized Seizure Disorder" and that his EEG was "very very abnormal". He described it as "his brain is firing from all over the place all of the time". Then he gave us a list of medications in which we should look into and chose which anti-seizure med we needed to choose. Luckily, I have a great relationship with our Pharmacist who helped us pick based on his extensive knowledge of all that is Abe.
We chose Clonazepam over the rest in hopes that it would help is serious lack of sleep, his agitated mood in addition to helping his seizures. December was THE BEST MONTH we have ever had. All of our friends noticed just from his pictures that he was so happy and he felt sooooo good. He had a shine in his eyes. He smiled. He played with toys. He walked unassisted for the first time in his life at 30 months. He fed himself with a fork for the first time all right before Christmas. Everyone said "he seems like such a different little boy". But then it changed. So we upped his Meds in January, February and March. For most of the month of March I called begging for help to our Neurologist's Office. We were trying to set up peer-to-peer conversation between our local doctor and the Skull Base Surgeon who had been following Abe since he was 10 months old. Our Neurologist had admitted that he needed outside help. I even wrote a research paper for him on the 7q31.31 deletion and our Geneticists findings as well as the info I had from the only 4 other families in the country who have similar but not the same deletion but I never got a response regarding my findings at all which basically proved that the 7q31.31 had no other patients who suffered from seizures. After our Neuro and the Skull Based Surgeon's first peer-to-peer, we were told their concerns were things were structurally changing within the brain. We needed an "urgent MRI" that got pushed back a week. I bawled my eyes out. Then we got the MRI and it showed that in addition to his "11+mm prominent pineal cystic lesion" he now has a new 2cm occipital cyst as well and there are changes in his hippocampus and his temporal horns. It took another 10 days for these results to be discussed with the Skull Base Surgeon (who wanted to give us an even later date but our doctor refused). Just last weekend, he had a seizure with his SCL on that Friday, by Saturday he was crawling and by Sunday he could only take a couple of steps before he collapsed and had to crawl the rest of the way. I called the "on-call" Neuro who asked me "What do you want to do?" In some occasions, it's great to have a doctor ask you that. However, that occasion is NOT when your toddler is having Neurological Issues and no one ever even really discussed with you what that REALLY MEANS or what to look for... that is not what you want to hear. So, she advised us to give him an extra dose of meds and bring him in if it still continued. And it did. So we went to the ER. We were admitted and told he'd need another MRI and no one would even call to discuss with our Neurologist. So they prepped him for said MRI and full sedation (with breathing tube, etc) by giving him an IV (which is horrific for him, in so so many ways) and starving him. By 7pm that night he was a WRECK. They still didn't have a sedation team to do the MRI so they let him eat and then we had to withhold food again until his MRI that was to be at 8 am. Eight o'clock in the morning came by quickly and after waiting several hours more and with Abe having a nervous breakdown, the MRI was canceled and my son was able to eat. By 2pm that day, our Neurologist told us the Skull Base Surgeon still said he was not a surgical candidate for the pineal cyst and had no other advice. No word about the Seizures or the changes in his hippocampus or temporal horns. No mention of the new occipital cyst. No explanation. No nothing. We were told that they didn't know how to help us and that we needed to go somewhere else. Having your Neurologist tell you they don't know how to help your child is overwhelming. I'm NOT angry with him for that at all. I feel lucky that I at least have a doctor who is honest with me and WANTS to help my son get to someone who can help. It's an incredibly scary journey when the specialists need to point you in another direction. |
About MeHello! My name is Erin. I am Abram's mom, a tireless advocate for UBE2A Deficiency Syndrome and a fierce proponent for medical cannabis. MOST POPULAR BlOG ENTRYJOIN US
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