An EEG in pictures

For those who have never been though a 24 hour EEG with a young child, it's impossible to even properly describe. Picture your worst nightmare, make it last 24 hours (or one week like our last EEG) and throw in a very cranky toddler.

The only things that have been more stressful are the seizures themselves and the lack of anything working to treat them.

I didn't take any pictures of hooking him up because it took both me and Jonathan holding him down to get it done. It sucks. I HATE the process almost as much as I hate seizures. When we do the 20 min one in the doctors office it is less stressful. The tech's over there are much calmer and more experienced plus they don't have to cement them to his head. The whole process just sucks and according to the tech's it will until he 4 or 5. God help us.

The only up-side of this EEG, and the reason I was able to take pictures, is because we actually got sent home with the monitor on! YAY! We got to be at home, out in the world, and most importantly, out of a tiny hospital room tethered to the wall.

When we left the hospital we headed to the mall because it was cold and wet outside. We rode the carousel a few times, and the train that runs in the mall. Jack LOVES the carousel, has a frequent rider card, and has been known to cry when we make him get off. He had a good time walking around and it wasn't to obvious that anything was going on. Either that or people were too scared to say anything.


When he was ready for a nap we headed to the car. The doctor actually wanted us to let him nap in the car so that we could get a seizure on the EEG. The problem was that the car wouldn't start. Long story short, the battery was dead and my mom's boyfriend, Ron, came and rescued me and Jack while Jonathan dealt with Sears and the battery. I suppose it would have been worse had Jack and I been on our own and I had no food for him, EEK! But it was sucky timing. I dropped Ron back off at his house and drove Jack around in his car. He had 1 seizure for sure and another episode that I suspect was a seizure.

That evening my mom came over to hang out with the little man. She also brought us dinner and wine! And our friend Rita came over too.

This is what his head looks like all bandaged up. The EEG leads are glued (AKA cemented) to his head and then wrapped. He pulled at it for a little while but eventually left it alone.


Then he had to wear the backpack, which he did really well. He has an ace bandage on his head here because at 3 AM we had to wake him up to re-wrap his head because everything but the leads came off. He didn't go back down until 5:30. Just add EEG tech to my list of mom duties. That's one that they didn't teach me in college.


I love this hat! And it was the best thing to put over everything they tape to his head. Dr. Kane ran into us one of the times we were at the hospital and he really liked it too :-)


And this is the way we all felt about the whole thing.


He did get bundled up to go on a car ride. And this hat and gloves set just cracks me up.


That night I had a pallet on the floor of his room. I "slept" with my glasses on and the monitor right in front of me so that every time he moved I could check and make sure he wasn't tangled, or pulling on his head, or having a seizure. I got maybe 3 hours of very interrupted sleep. Thankfully Jonathan took over early in the morning and let me sleep another 1.5 hours.

And he did a lot more car riding around the house too. You can kind of see the leads that are glued to his head in this picture.


24 hours later it was back to the hospital to get un-hooked. It's much easier and quicker than the hooking up process. Part of what sucks is waiting for 45 min each time, even though we're there on time. And as soon as he saw the tech again, he turned the other way and tried to get away. Thankfully he didn't fuss when we picked him up and took him, but I was concerned at his reaction.


We got back to the room and the tech took the box out and said, "I've never seen this code before on the screen. I'm not sure if it recorded." I stopped breathing. I was going to have a breakdown if it didn't record. She called another tech and found out that one of the batteries came lose, but that's why they put in 2 new batteries when they hook them up. Thankfully it did record and everything was fine. But Oh My God, don't do that to us.


This is what his head looks like under all of the bandages. I think there are 27 leads. Each one has to be measured, marked, and the cemented to his head so you can see why it takes a while. Then they all have to be tested to make sure they work.


The they just bathe his head is acatone mixed with baby oil and give him a scalp massage to get them off. And after he gave the tech a big hug, said thank you, and blew her kisses. He is the sweetest child ever.


As for the results, we won't know anything until Thursday when we see the neurologist. I know that he had 1 seizure. He also had what I've been wondering about while he slept in his crib, so I'm really glad that they'll be able to tell me if it is a seizure. He did not have one of the new seizures that he's been having and I'm just now beginning to wonder if he's having yet another kind a seizure. So he's now had infantile spasms, partial seizures, what I think are tonic seizures (or maybe tonic clonic, I'm not sure which) and now possibly complex partial seizures and/or myoclonic drops. That is far too many seizures for a child who's not even 2.

I'm not sure what's going to happen at the appointment. I suspect we may be sent to Houston for a scan thus sending us back down the surgery road. But I also think that his meds need to be reduced and maybe the diet tweaked a bit.

I'm not sure what is best for Jack at this point, but I do know that we have to do what we can to get the seizures to stop. I rarely have pity parties for us because I know that it's not going to help. And we really are the lucky ones. Jack is still the child who everyone looks at and thinks that he's completely normal, I'm just worried that if we don't get these seizures to stop, he won't remain that child. And while I do not pity him in any way, I still worry for him.

Out of the Hospital

I have a lot to say about Jack and his recent trip to the hospital, but he's teething so I've gotten no sleep. None. At. All.

At our follow up visit with Dr. Kane, the neurologist, he wanted to do a longer EEG to make sure that the staring spells Jack has been having weren't seizures. He was so positive that it was nothing and that Jack was fine, but my mommy instincts were going off. I was really hopeful that they were just on over load from everything that has gone on so far. So the EEG was to catch one of these spells on the EEG and eliminate any problems.

We checked in on Monday morning at 7:00 to hook Jack up to the EEG. That. Was. Awful. It took everything in me not to cry with him. It took about 2 hours to get everything hooked up. They had to cement the electrodes to his head with glue and cold air, it was horrible. Almost as bad as the day I wasn't able to feed him all day. Not quite that bad, but close.

He was leashed. We could move around the room, but that was it. And it was a royal pain to keep up with those things. Jack was not a happy camper. The first 24 hours weren't fun, but the second 24 were awful. That's right, we were there hooked up to that think for 48 hours.

After the first day, after not seeing any staring spells, the doc had looked at the EEG and said that so far it looked perfect. The next day at noon-ish he came by, said that he was going to go scower the EEG and that we needed to talk about when we wanted to go home. We felt like we were damned if we did and damned if we didn't. We really wanted to catch one of these spells on the EEG but at the same time we had no idea when it would happen and Jack was so upset about being hooked up to that thing.

Dr. Kane came back about 2 hours later and said that he was really sorry but he was wrong and he found some abnormalities. They indicated that Jack is having partial seizures. The whole conversation is a blur. He said that Jack might grow out of this in a few year. Yeah, YEARS. Or it may be something he has for the rest of his life.

Let me go on a little tangent here and say that we all have our shit to deal with. Some people have weight issues, I've had pain issues and lived in constant pain for 2 years, and some people deal with mental health issues. We all have something to deal with, this is Jack's.

Anyways, after a sleepless night in the hospital where Jack was up every 45 minutes we got unhooked and bolted home. He was so happy to be at home and playing with his toys.

Saturday evening we finally got to talk to the doctor. He called after he went over the rest of the EEG. We didn't get a staring spell on the EEG but the spikes indicate that something isn't right. He recommended not medicating him and waiting it out a little. If it's going to get worse, it will be obvious and we'll call right away and get medicine started. However the doctor is hopeful that this will go away on its own. In the mean time we are treating him with acupuncture.

Knowing that there is something wrong with my baby's brain and that there isn't much I can do but wait for it to get worse is stressful to say the least. We're just praying that he doesn't come out of this with any brain damage and that this is all just a bad memory sooner rather than later.

He hasn't slept well all week. I haven't eaten dinner 3 nights because I'm just too tired. Hopefully the teething will end soon and we can all get some much needed rest.

Here is my little man all hooked up and taking it well... the first day.