Sara's Appointment

Where is Maryann's Monday Madness?  What will I say?  Ugh, the pressure.

Sara had her follow-up at the neurologist this morning and it was basically good.  In spite of the fact that she's had three seizures now since September 9, they are not pushing to put her on anti-seizure medication.  I told them that my only concern is if she starts worrying a lot about having one or it starts interfering with her life, I would like to see her on something just to give her that peace of mind.  She's so self-confident and we'd hate to see anything change that.  The doctor and nurse practitioner both want to wait and see if she has any more before getting into medication.  The reason being that once a child starts anti-seizure medication, they need to stay on it until they are seizure-free for 2 years before trying to come off it.  The downside of no medication is that if she continues to have seizures, it will in effect "rewire" her brain and the seizures will be more frequent and more severe.  So we decided to wait with the agreement that if she has more seizures, we will take that step. 

Another unusual thing:  Sara's seizures always start with a visual hallucination that is very clear.  The first time, she "saw" her classroom while she was in bed, the second she "saw" houses in her classroom and last week she "saw" people in the cafeteria that weren't there.  The neurologist said that based on where her calcium deposits are - in the right rear lobe of her brain - hallucinations are usually spots or squiggly lines or flashes.  Because hers are so well-defined, it leads them to believe that the seizures are actually taking place in further in her brain, the temporal lobe.  Why this is they aren't sure. 

We're keeping her on the aspirin a day regime - that is to try to thin the blood and increase blood flow in the area of her brain where the calcium deposits are restricting it.  She will have another MRI in March and we'll meet with the neurologists again shortly after that.  Unless she has more seizures or we have concerns, when we could go back at any time. 

As far as the mood swings we've noticed, well, there the news is bad.  Apparently, that's just almost-10-year-old-girl related and we can't do anything about THAT.  Bummer.  There's never a pharmaceutical solution when you REALLY want one. :)