June 07, 2008


This week, Jade will have an MRI, a lumbar puncture, an examination by an opthamologist, more blood work and possibly another EEG. After all that, there's about a 50% chance that we'll determine the cause of her seizures.

Maybe I should contact the writers of "House" to figure things out for us. They can do it in less than an hour.

All kidding aside, being at this hospital is a pretty sobering thing. We stayed at Ronald McDonald house one night where some of the guests have been dealing with cancer and have been in and out of the hospital (mostly in) for over a year. We're in a cardiac and respiratory ward now (because that's where a bed was available) and Jade is the only kid in the whole block who can walk around and play on her own.

Based on the EEG and the seizures, Jade is having myoclonic seizures (don't let the link freak you out) with a few clonic-tonic seizures thrown in here and there. According to the EEG, there's seizure activity happening that we can't see which could possibly lead to delays in her development if left untreated.

We still don't know if the seizures will worsen of if they'll go away and, while the doctors have an idea about what the various seizure medications will do, it's really only a guess until they've been tried.

Meanwhile, they're paying very close attention to her development, making sure that she's not losing any "milestones". If anything, she seems to be developing more rapidly and is charming everyone she meets. She's becoming quite the extrovert, saying "Hi!" and "Bye" to almost everyone she meets. She's also learning a lot of new words and somehow figured out that "applied rectally" means "Bum? In? Bum?".

Fawn is flying down to join us tomorrow; it's just easier for her to be here than to not be here. So much for flipping a coin.

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