Isaiah's Next Phase

We arrived at the epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) here at Texas Children's Hospital on Monday evening. Dr. Wilfong, Isaiah's doctor, took him off of all meds beginning Monday morning. As with all epileptics, you can expect a seizure within five days of no medicine. Isaiah was ahead of the curve and had a seizure on Tuesday afternoon for about five minutes and then again this morning for twelve minutes. He needed two doses of the drug Adavan today to stop the seizure. Long seizures are one of the most frustrating and scary parts about Isaiah's condition.

This afternoon, Dr. Wilfong came in to our room with his evaluation. On a positive note, Isaiah's seizures seem to still be coming from the front tempural lobe of his brain - a confirmation on from our January diagnosis. Unfortunately, they are not able to see the abnormality on the 3T MRI, which we hoped they would be able to see. Dr. Wilfong said it is a blessing and curse. The blessing is you cannot see it because it is so small. The curse is that because it is small, Isaiah is not a candidate for surgery at this time. He could be a candidate in the future.

In our search for good news, Dr. Wilfong does still think Isaiah has a great outlook for three reasons.

1. First and foremost, he is developing normally.

2. He is still young and by the time he turns two and his brain is more developed, we may see the abnormality more clearly which would allow us to progress down the surgery route. Or, he might "out grow" or minimize the epilepsy over time thus not requiring surgery at all.

3. Even though we are not a strong candidate for surgery now, that could change and there are other tests that we will run in the future (PET, MEG, SPECT) if he continues to have issues.

We met a young girl's parents down the hall who is having the surgery on Friday. Dr. Wilfong said her epilepsy is similar to Isaiah's condition. He is extremely hopeful for her procedure and believes it could remove the epilepsy all together.

Dr. Wilfong is very matter of fact and presents his findings that way. We are feeling OK about the news. Of course, we just want to fix it, but if that is an option it will be off into the future. We'll ask for faith to guide our path.

Renzi and Lee Anne