Neurologist Appointment

Today, Hayden had an appointment with his neurologist.  We advised her that hadn't seen any seizures for certain, but that he has a single sudden jerk from time to time.  It happens so suddenly and I usually only catch it out of the corner of my eye.  However, there have been two times where the movement I saw really had me worried because they looked just like the infantile spasms did.  Looking  back on the progression of Hayden's seizures last year, they started with just a single jerking movement.  That information, coupled with the fact that Hayden's last EEG was in August and was worse than the previous one, it was decided that another EEG would be scheduled before Hayden's eye surgery in December (that will help him to be more tolerant of the tech putting the leads on his head). His Phenobarb level (the level of Phenobarbital in his blood) hasn't been checked since April, so it's time to do that again as well.   It is very important that his seizure medicine stay at a theraputic level.

When she did the physical examination, she was able to make his legs tremor by moving his foot up and down several times.  Apparently, the proper term is clonus. It is a series of involuntary muscle movements that are caused by the sudden stretching of a muscle.  He did pretty well when she pulled him into a sit by his arms.  His head followed along so much better than it used to.  Since several of Hayden's therapists are wondering what is cognative ability is, we asked her what we should tell them.  Since she is not a neuropsycholostist, she doesn't have all of the tools available to test Hayden.  She did let us know that the University of Iowa Hospitals has the testing available and that it is a very comprehensive test that takes about two days.  We let her know what kinds of things Hayden's been working on such as taking things out of one container and putting them into another and learing body parts.  She said that his therapist are probably the best ones to determine this right now, but that he is probably not quite ready for these things.  Doing activities with him that you would do with a 6 month old are probably more on the right track.  For now, we are keeping our fingers crossed for good EEG results.