Inter-Cranial Seizures and Playing Ball in the Room

We moved out of the PICU yesterday afternoon and saw a lot of visitors yesterday. We thought it might be overwhelming for Lauren as she was in pain and lethargic, but she said she liked the company.



Jess and Langley stayed with Lauren while Barbara, Sandra and I went for dinner at Mad Mex near the Penn Campus. Sandra spent the night with Lauren while the rest of us went home, had drinks and crashed.



Sandra said their night was quiet and restful. The IV team came in at some point and replaced Lauren's IV, which she said was bothering her, but otherwise it was a quiet night for them. This morning, Dr. Clancy, one of the attending neurologists came by with a smile on his face and good news for us. He showed Sandra a copy of the EEG reading, which looks like a lie-detector test pattern, and said that some extra squiggly lines in the middle of it represented inter-cranial seizures. Inter-cranial seizures are seizures that happen in the brain with no outside indicators like twitching or seizing. They are the beginning of seizure activity. He even showed us on a brain MRI where he thinks they are coming from and noted that there is nothing critical at that part of the brain. Hard to believe that there is any area of the brain that we could do without, but I suppose that if you did lose some functional part of your brain it might migrate to a lesser used area. Anyway, they are still going to wait for bigger seizures and more evidence, but this is a promising start. Good news for all of us and Lauren, a real morale booster.



I think around lunchtime, Lauren had alot of visitors, young and old alike. She loved "having her friends over", so the parents wisely evacuated the room to huddle elsewhere. Sandra said the kids (5 plus Lauren) were having fun and were quite loud, then the Occupational Therapist showed up and the 7 of them played ball in the room. What a time.



Lauren must be feeling better because within 5 minutes of me being there, she was yelling at me, telling me what to do, and basically being a 16 year old girl.



A couple of funny stories re the doctors.


One of them really likes our family and said he was setting up a martini bar in the lobby when he retires. Sandra confirmed that we liked martinis and would patronize his place but questioned whether all the parents would be fun with a couple of martinis under their belt.

Yesterday, Dr. Storm was visiting Lauren. There were a lot of visitors and activity and the nurse asked him if he was one of the neurologists. He said no, he was the neurosurgeon, and that was about the biggest insult you could give a neurosurgeon, calling him a neurologist. As I read this it doesn't seem funny, but the way it transpired showed that contrary to their reputation, these guys have personality and a sense of humor. Then when we were walking out and past the EEG machine, Sandra paused, pointed to the graph and asked if it meant something. Dr. Storm paused and laughed "not to me"!


Anyways, nice guys and we have a good relationship with them.


Breaking news: The physical therapist was by, checked Lauren's right leg and said that the function was fine. More good news.