EEG's

I thought I should take a few minutes and give an update with the recent Manti happenings. Many of you know around Thanksgiving Manti started having these little "shaking" episodes(his head would shake uncontrollably, arms and legs sometimes too). The first time he did it I was a little worried but then when I said his name he just looked at me and gave me the biggest smile. I just let it go and didn't think anything of it. A few days before Christmas he did it again, three times in one day. Troy was at work and I couldn't talk to him until later that night. Long story short, we ended up in the emergency room that night. They did blood tests and everything came back elevated which was a little concerning. I had never seen a baby do this before and became a little more worried. With a history of seizures on Troy's side of the family we weren't sure if that's what was going on with Manti. We went to the clinic (on base) for a follow up appointment and one of the things they did was measure his head. The next thing the doctor said really threw me for a loop...his head size had gone from being in the 7th%tile to the 44th%tile in a month! That was very alarming to the doctors. Christmas day he had three more, Troy called the on-call doctor, we were very lucky to get an anti-seizure medicine. A few days later we ended up going to the Children's Hospital in Denver for an EEG. Manti is not a fan of having his head touched, this was NOT the best experience! See for yourself....

This first picture was just getting started with everything. He doesn't look too upset, but this is leading up to this... It took about 20minutes, maybe longer to get everything all set up. Which means, 20 minutes of my poor little baby in tears, screaming! This last picture is of the tech wrapping his head so he doesn't yank the electrodes off his head. He is a little worn out from the crying and starting to calm down a little. The next day the doctor called us with results from the EEG. Her exact words were "Is this Manti's mom? I have the results and it showed abnormal activity on the left side of his brain." My first response "What does that mean?" I think my heart skipped a few beats and it took me a minute to realize what she just told me. The next step to this madness...monitoring his "episodes" and an MRI! We were lucky enough to go on our trip to AZ as planned, we needed that break! At that point, Manti was on the anti-seizure medicine and STILL having these episodes going on. It seemed as though they increased after starting the medicine, making us worry even more. After calling and talking to the neurology doctors again, they decided to do an EMU, which is basically a 2-3 day EEG. GREAT! The first one went oh so well, now we have to do it again. February 2nd we checked in to the hospital and started all over again (with the EEG). This time the tech marked his head where to put certain electrodes. Again, not so happy. His big brother was there to help calm him down and make him happy. I think it worked!

The first night was horrible. Neither Manti or I slept at all and to make matters worse, he threw up all over me! EEWWW! Manti finally let me put him down in the crib but I was feeling a little overwhelmed. Can you tell? After three days of this, he did NOT have any episodes the whole time! Everything looked PERFECT-no abnormalities on the EEG. Why do kids do this? We were released and told to not give him anymore of the medicine. Since then, he has only had two episodes. Yay! We were then anxiously waiting for his MRI on the 25th of February!

(I don't have those pictures uploaded on the computer yet so check back soon for the MRI details and final results.)