Thursday, August 28, 2014

My Son Is Happy & Healthy


 




             Last July Bill and I started noticing Buddy was getting headaches quite often.   We took him to see his pediatrician and she said headaches are pretty common for kids his age but he was having trouble with the eye test so he may need glasses.  If he squints his eyes to see often this will cause more headaches.  We took him for his first eye exam last August and of course as suspected he needed glasses.  We got him glasses but the headaches didn’t seem to be going away.  
Bill and I started noticing some eye rolling, where his eyes would roll up and off to the right.  We took him to the pediatrician to discuss this and she said to keep an eye on it and if any other symptoms come along with it to bring him back.  The YMCA put on a talent show for the parents and while on stage Bill and I witnessed something very scary to see as parents.  We watched our son go into a mode of eye rolling and face scrunching every 20 seconds or more the entire time he was on stage.   The first thing I thought was I wonder if he knew what was happening because It looked like our son was on stage having seizures but he would keep singing like nothing ever happened.   I then thought about what the other parents were thinking: “what is wrong with this kid”, “why is he doing that with his face”.
We knew at this point something was wrong; especially now that he was doing the face scrunching along with the eye rolling.  His pediatrician’s office was closed so we spoke to the on call doctor who referred us to the children’s emergency unit at MCV.   They took very good care of my little guy and went over many tests to possibly rule out brain tumors.  They sent us to The Children’s Pavilion to see a neurologist (Dr. Levingston) where we set an appointment for an EEG to be done (appointment was for August 28th, which is today).  Dr. Levingston said she thinks it’s either Tics or Seizures; the EEG will give us this information.   We told her about the frequent headaches which had gotten worse by then and was told if Buddy starts throwing up with the headaches to bring him in, which would be more towards migraines.
August 11th his teacher at the YMCA called and said out of nowhere he grabbed his head and started crying pointing at the middle of his forehead,  he started throwing up which I immediately remember what Dr. Levingston said about new symptoms to bring him in; we were back in the children’s unit.  They did go ahead with a CT scan which the results were normal so this was a big weight lifted off my shoulders!  The doctor confirmed that he has a case of severe migraines.  Which as anyone who has migraines knows they are terrible, especially a severe case for a 7 year old.  We still needed to keep the EEG appointment because although he has the migraines the eye rolling and movements are caused by something else.
Today was EEG day.  We had to wake Buddy up at 2am and keep him awake until testing time so he could be awake and have the scans watch his brain activity as he fell asleep.   Dr. Levingston said Buddy does have tics, which can change to many new kinds of tics over time and between 6 months to a year turn into turrets.  So this is something we will need to keep an eye on.  The EEG was a little abnormal and he has some high spike waves which meant he would be at a greater risk for a seizure than the average person.
The good news is Buddy is going to be fine!  Bill and I were so worried and scared thinking the worst when all of this started going on.  I only shared this with immediate family when it first happened because we didn’t want to post anything on FB until we knew some answers.  We have gotten many prayers and love through this time which seemed like forever to get to today.  You never know what someone might be going through and it’s easy to question it because we are all human but If you see my son making faces, rolling his eyes or having finger movements, don’t ask yourself “what is wrong with him” just know he is like every other kid with a little something extra special going on.  I'm so thankful I had my family with me through all of this and know they will be there for whatever else may come along.   My son rocks my world and can't tell you how blessed I am to have such an awesome kid in my life! God is truly amazing!
 
 

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