“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.” ~Author unknown
You may remember a post I wrote last week about finding Justin alone at school, in a daze, walking in circles. If you missed it, you can read it here.
I mentioned that I had seen him "zombie out" before. I had always chalked it up to a low or a fast drop in blood sugar. That explanation made perfect sense to me.
Out of coincidence... Justin had a neurologist appointment two days after that "incident". It stuck with me because of the fact that I found him wondering by himself. Just in conversation... I mentioned it to Dr. G and of course, he had questions.
He decided that from a neurological standpoint that an EEG would be beneficial, but told me not to worry.
Yesterday, was the day we scheduled the EEG. Justin was a champ and did everything he was told. I was a proud mama.
During the test... the tech asked Justin to breath heavily, in and out, continuously until she told him to stop. During this time she said she would talk to him about elephants and he needed to remember the color of the elephant she was telling him about.
I sat there and watched.
A few seconds after the heavy breathing began, the tech started talking about purple elephants. Then, abruptly, about 15 seconds later the heavy breathing stopped and the lost zombie returned.
Silence filled the room for what seemed like forever. I found out it was actually ten seconds.
All of the sudden Justin Asks "how much longer".
But when she asked him "what color was the elephant"... he just said "what elephant".
As soon as the tech stood up and left the room for a minute... I just pleaded to myself. "Please... Please don't".
When we were checking out I asked how long it would be before we heard anything. I was told a couple of days. Justin and I went about the day and, by some miracle, I didn't think about it again.
Until that afternoon when Dr. G's name flashed up on the caller ID. NOT the usual office name... HIS name.
(Insert Reyna's F.F.S)
Turns out... Justin has what they call Absent Seizures.
Here's a typical scenario for a child with Absent Seizures: Frank, a 7-year-old boy, often "blanks out" anywhere from a few seconds to 20 seconds at a time. During a seizure, Frank doesn't seem to hear his teacher call his name, he usually blinks repetitively, and his eyes may roll up a bit. During shorter seizures, he just stares. Then he continues on as if nothing happened. Some days Frank has more than 50 of these spells.
I copied the above scenario from Epilepsy.com. You can click on the link to read more about Absent Seizures.
According to Dr. G... during that twenty minute test Justin had "several" of them. They (his at least) lasted about 10 seconds each.
They require medication- which we will start tomorrow.
I just cried. (I also drank a bottle of wine, but we wont discuss that).
I know that there are worse thing in the world. You don't have to tell me it could be worse. But as a mom... anything your child goes through seems like the end of the world.
I don't understand why he has to deal with any more. He has dealt with ENOUGH!
With any luck... Justin will be lucky enough to grow out of these seizures. Unlike D... we can have hope that he will.
