Neurology

Since my last update, there has been a few things going on. Way back in April right after Noah returned to school following his surgery, Noah began having some strange behaviors. In October of last year, we noticed some similar behaviors and Noah underwent an EEG to rule out seizures. Because the EEG in October was normal, I thought nothing of the return of the staring spells. I figured he was just out of his routine and having a hard time readjusting. When his teacher, aide and speech therapist all expressed concern over the staring and unresponsiveness, we decided it might be a good idea to have another EEG to rule out anything new.  On May 18 we had a repeat EEG done. This time was a little different. Noah was far more sleep deprived and actually slept for the sleeping part of the test. We set up an appointment with neurology for August 31 on the assumption (You'd think that I would know better than to assume anything. What's that old saying about assuming? LOL) that the EEG was normal. A week later we received the results from Noah's pediatrician, who immediately got in touch with Children's and rescheduled Noah's appointment for a sooner date.

On July 2, Noah had his appointment with neurology at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Because they were booked, we did not see an actual neurologist and instead saw a CNP. She was awesome and treated Noah so well. She noticed his hypotonia immediately. She could also tell that he was (and still is at times) a toe walker. She asked SO many questions. She even held Noah up to the window so that he could see all the construction work going on outside. After her exam and talking with us, she consulted with the neurologist to get her opinion. The consensus is that Noah is having seizures. He was diagnosed with complex partial seizures and we began medication a short time later. She also set Noah up for an MRI at the end of next month to rule out any possible cause (although the odds of that are pretty slim).

I think that the seizure diagnosis hit me just as hard or harder than the autism diagnosis. I had a half-brother that was an epileptic. He passed away in his early 20's due to complications. A few days after Noah's diagnosis, I got a phone call from the Epilepsy Foundation. She left a message on my answering machine. I haven't called her back yet. I will. Sometime. I'm coming to grips with the diagnosis now, but it's still hard. I know he will be fine. He's such a great kid. He's dong well on the medication. It took him awhile to adjust and we are increasing the dosage VERY slowly because he became excessively drowsy when he started. Sorry this post is so long, but I had to get some stuff off my chest.

OT Graduation and Coming (Short) Trip

Life has been so hectic since school finished up in June. Why does it seem like life gets MORE hectic when school lets out? Anyways, Noah has been keeping busy with the usual things. Yesterday, Noah attended his regular OT and PT sessions. He did really well. During his OT session, his therapist, Noelle, asked me how I would feel about her graduating Noah out of OT. I wasn't quite ready for that, but I was okay with it. I'm really proud of how far Noah has come. He he has worked really hard and made so many gains. He began OT back in June 2008, so I guess that it is pretty fitting that he finish 2 years later. Of course, he still has sensory issues and he is still delayed in self-help and adaptive skill areas, but not to the degree that would require weekly OT sessions. He may need to attend "tune-up" sessions every once in awhile, but we don't expect him to require anymore extensive OT. We'll really miss the sessions with Noelle, but since his PT is in the same building we will still see her on a pretty regular basis.

We also found out this week that his SLP will be taking maternity leave sometime in the next few weeks and will not be back until the fall sometime. Because she has no one to take over for her, we made the collective decision to take a break from speech while she is on leave and return in the fall. A year ago, this would have freaked me out! Now, I realize that Noah is doing really well and taking a short break isn't that big of a deal. Miss Emily, his SLP, is making a packet of thing or us to work on at home with him. We'll see how things go. If he seems to struggle, we can always take him to another SLP (pretty easy considering our neighbor is one!).

This Friday we will be making the 60 mile trip to the closest Children's hopital to see a neurologist. Some of you may remember that back in October Noah had an EEG because of some staring spells that he was having. That EEG came back normal and we figured it was just some weird thing that he did. Well, after he had his surger in April and returned to school, his teacher and aide mentioned that they had noticed the same staring spells that we had noticed back in October. Noah's SLP also mentioned that she had noticed the same thing, so we decided to have a second EEG done in May. This EEG came back abnormal, so we have now have an appointment with a neurologist to see what it means exactly.

Since Friday is gonna be a somewhat stressful day, we decided that it would be nice to take a little trip to the Columbus Zoo on Saturday to relax. It's Military Family Free Day, so we won't have to pay to get in! That means we can spend more on souvenirs and food! Yay! Noah hasn't been to the zoo, so this should be fun. So it looks like the next few days will be crazy, again! Hope everyone enjoys there weekend ahead.