When we got to Chidren's she was hyper! She loved everything she saw and was walking all over the place checking things out. I was the only one of the two of us that looked sleep deprived ;)! They called us back and after finding her something to watch on TV, which she never looked at, they started getting her all hooked up. First they measured out where each electrode would be and marked the spot with a marker.
Then they cleaned each of the spots with some sort of a cleaner.
Next they dipped each electrode in glue, stuck it on her head, and then covered it with a piece of gauze.
Here she is all hooked up.
First they had her close her eyes for 20 seconds. She wouldn't keep them closed so I put my hands over her eyes. Then they had her blow on a pinwheel for 3 minutes! This was supposed to be like hyperventilation.
Next they flashed a strobe light in front of her a few times. Below is the monitor they watched while they were doing these tests. You can see that not only is it measuring her brain activity but there is a video camera pointed at her so you can see what she is doing on the bottom right corner of the screen. In this shot she is sitting still:
And in this shot she was moving around. Look at the little lines all over the place when she moved!
After all of this the very nice nurse said "OK now she can go to sleep". Seriously?! How in the world do you expect a child, even a sleep deprived one, to sleep after all of that?! I prayed and prayed that she would fall asleep but she never did. The nurse came back in and said that she was still and that should be good enough. Then they squirted some sort of a liquid on her head to loosen up the glue and the electrodes slipped right off. The nurse told me that I should call on Monday to get results. I didn't notice her having anything that obviously looked like a seizure so I'm very curious to see what they say.
When it was all done I stopped by the gift shop and got her a balloon to take home. Don't you love her greasy hair?!
Can you tell by her choice that she has brothers? She barely knows who Scooby Doo is but she knows her brothers like it so that was good enough for her!
She looked very sleepy by the time we got home but now she is walking around like she had a great nights sleep. I'm off to wash her nasty looking hair out!
1 comment:
Hi Erin!
Can I give you a bit of advice?
Keep a medical journal for Oksana. This will help you establish when these seizures are occurring and the circumstances associated with the seizures. It will help you anticipate them or even learn how to avoid triggering seizures.
We did this for our epileptic dog and then for our epileptic child and it provided incredible insight!
For instance, our child was more prone to seizures when sleep deprived (I suspect that's why they wanted Oksana sleep deprived). We also found our child was more prone to seizures when stressed and when blood sugar was low (right before meals or when meals were late.)
We also discovered that our dog was prone to 2x more seizures when exposed to tiny amounts of flea medication. We've long known that he can't tolerate flea meds -- they cause seizures. But we never suspected that he'd be more prone to seizures when other animals in the household have recently received flea meds! (Incredible, as he's not taking the medication into his body or bloodstream...he's just smelling it, perhaps? But that's enough.)
With our medical journal, we also found that our dog was much more prone to seizures on Thursdays. Odd, right? Well, we did a bit of thinking and experimentation and we realized that he's reacting to the freshly-dried clothes. It appears to be the chemicals in the dryer sheets that triggers more seizures. (He likes to sit on the couch amongst the warm, fresh-out-of-the-dryer clothes.) We stopped using dryer sheets and hand-washed his blanket and bed in the sink and the spike in Thursday seizures decreased!
Here's what to do:
Write down what Oksana does every day.
-- Write down the time of seizures (her aid will need to record some of this info for you). She may be more prone at certain times of day.
-- record what she was doing immediately before the seizure
-- record the time she wakes and when she sleeps
-- record what she eats
-- record any significant exposures (e.g. a medication, chemicals, including detergents and cleaners, a new food, etc.)
-- and note any other significant things, like a recent crying fit, an usual mood throughout the day or whatnot.
In my experience, the medical journal provided greater insight into contributing factors.
The patterns were much clearer on paper and our neurologists (both -- for our child and our veterinary neurologist) found these journals extremely useful during the diagnostic process and treatment.
Of course, only medication eliminated the seizures entirely. But we were able to avoid situations and chemicals that made our child and our dog even more prone to them.
Hope that helps! If you have any questions, just let me know!
-Truewell
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