Children's trip update

Brynn's appointment went well. Dr. Einstein was there today after he sent the Intern in... I gave a good lecture to the Intern who will become a Pediatrician soon. Explained to her that Brynn should have been diagnosed at two years of age or even earlier. Explained that his symptoms were overlooked and explained with "Night Terrors, Infant Gas, Articulation Disorder ect.) Told her that I made a promise to myself that I would tell this to every Intern and Pediatrician I come in contact with. If someone would have listened to me many years ago we could have helped him a lot sooner. We are going to schedule a trip down to chat with Surgeon about VNS and set the VNS implant surgery date. He thinks it will be a valuable tool for Brynn, but cautioned me on thinking it is a cure for him. He said we can Hope for a 50% reduction, but he doesn't expect it to be that for Brynn. I appreciated his honesty. I expressed my fear of the future and said I want it because I want to have any tool that could potentially stop status, he understood and agreed that it is important to have any available tool to help Brynn.

Brynn 12 Brett7

He said because he is Refractory and failed so many meds he doesn't see him being seizure free, but it is important to only do one change at a time. By the way, if he has failed so many, why is still on all the failed ones except Trileptal? We are going up to 400 mg on Zonegran. We'll keep the Depakene at 1,250 mg twice daily, Vimpat 200 mg twice daily and Klonopin .5. Once Brynn gets back and stays at his baseline average of four seizures a week for a while we will try to wean Depakene and introduce Onfi, since Brynn's brain seems to like Benzo's. While doing the Neurological exam he noticed the small seizures I have been asking about for two years now, asked me if I noticed him spacing out... Told him he has always done it, he said he didn't notice it before. Told him I call it checking out, that sometimes he goes back to what he was doing, sometimes he doesn't remember what he was doing.

Tera 22, Abigail 2 and Brynn 12

Of course this is probably seizure activity that we cannot see and he said once we get the big ones under control we need to work on those as surely they effect his daily function. So thankful he noticed them... His Neuropsychological report from a year ago questions is this is happening because he noticed it while spending time with Brynn. His 3 day EEG even mentions seizure spikes with no clinical signs. So, productive visit for Brynn... many more questions for Mom... Still feeling insecure about all this, as I don't feel like my Brynn is safe. I still daily fight fear of what if, when and why. On the why, we talked about that too. He said he just doesn't feel like we will get anything back from genetic

Brandon 17, Abigail 2

testing. Even if we did it would not change anything. I said well at least I would know WHAT it is. He said we cannot go in and rewire his brain, it's just not wired correctly. There is not easy fix here and having a name for it is not going to change it. I disagree, but respect and understand his opinion as a physician. I am in hopes that increasing the Zonegran will bring positive changes... and I am looking forward to ANY change for the better that the VNS will give Brynn. He suggested I wait on the Neuropsychological re-testing, as he needs to be in better Neurological shape for it to be accurate, to see where he is in comparison to his baseline cognitive function before that horrible seizure that took away two years. He looked at the 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011 & 2012 writing samples from Brynn's home school. He wouldn't talk about regression, says it's Cognitive Disability. Not looking forward to that trip again, but perhaps we can get a room next time and actually visit family. There is always Ronald McDonald house for the Surgery day. Here's to HOPE... and lots of it! It's all in YHVH's hands anyway, what do they know... I got a message while at the Dr. and my phone was off. The buyers for our property were approved for the loan, so looks like we will be moving really soon... No idea where, LOL It's all in the Father's hands... Don't want to make any more poor decisions like we did coming here. We will walk away with considerably less than our down payment... and loose all other funds we spent getting Bri's room built and so on... Oh well, live and learn... boy did we! Kind of excited about what the future could bring... ~Denise