Sunday, May 26, 2013

Calvin's video EEG

(pretty much copied this over from my Calvin blog but wanted it here so it ends up in the scrap books.)


Last week Calvin had a 3 day video EEG to check on his epilepsy. He has been on seizure meds for 10 months now and we wanted to see if he is having sub clinical seizures.  Calvin was a little nervous about going into the hospital but he was also excited about it knowing that 1. he'd get to miss school, 2. he would get lots of TV time 3. room service.

He did pretty well over the 3 days.

The girls were also looking forward to Calvin being gone and Dave staying with him so that we could have a "girl party." in the end, we were all way to busy and getting home too late to do any movies or other fun things except for letting Clare and Lex each have a night sleeping in my bed.

Here are a few pics from Calvin's hospital stay.

This is the view from the door 

 This is the moniter keeping track of Calvin's brain waves and a video of what he's up to so they can match up any events they see with what he's doing (sleeping, resting, falling asleep, waking up, happy, not happy, etc.)
I liked watching the EEG when I was in the room. This is what it looked like when Calvin was chillin' and watching TV. Not too much going on. I totally believe TV is terrible and gives the brain nothing to do.



 For most of the time Calvin was hooked up to the monitor and couldn't be more than about 5 feet from  the bed. He was allowed 25 min off line/day.  When he was off line he carried this little bag around that his wires went into. There was a game room on the floor with games, movies, crafts, etc. that we went to on our breaks each day.


Monday night I brought the girls to visit Calvin. He had had such a relaxing day we wanted him to have a little excitement and irritation in his life so as to mirror a more real life picture of what would happen to him day by day.  We wanted him to experience a range of emotion and experience to see what/if anything triggers epileptic activity.  The girls were so excited "mom, I've never visited anyone in the hospital! This is so fun! What room is Calvins? ...." They are so full of energy!
I love my little jojo.  


Dave also asked me to bring Calvin some homework to try to irritate him a bit. But it didn't work. He was happy to have a workbook and did a couple of pages happily! :) This is not our usual Calvin. However, an hour of the girls non-stop talking did get him a bit irritated.

The girls had a good time looking at every inch of the room and eating lunchables for dinner.


This is the room from the outside of the hospital. You can see it right as you get out of the parking lot.


 4th floor of the new building.




DAY 2:

Day 2 - Calvin had a fit. Probably this is the only time I would actually be happy to have him have a fit, but we wanted to see what was going on in his head when he is really mad. The trigger for this episode was the dr coming in to see them and dave turning down the tv so Calvin couldn't hear well and then talking over his show. Dave had to hold Calvin in a restraint for a couple of hours so he wouldn't tear off his wires. He calmed down and the rest of the day was uneventful.

Dave had to go to work so Clare and I came in to keep him company from 2-7pm. Clare played games and watched TV with him. By 7 she was bouncing off the walls! (It was amazing to see the contrast between the healthy girls and Calvin. Normal kids should not be able to sit in the same spot for 48 hours).





DAY 3: The dr. made rounds at 9:30 and it took another hour or so to get the discharge orders in place for them to leave. They arrived home at noon.   The dr. read all data before she came to see Dave and Calvin and discussed everything she saw. She also re-read his previous EEG from last summer to compare.

The admitting physician was not our usual neurologist   Our neurologist this week was Dr. Wang.  She was very kind and did a good job with us. Normally we see Dr. Nespeca.  We will go to Nespeca in two weeks to discuss the official results.


Overall, the study went very well. We got a lot of data. Calvin was super well behaved for the most  part which was good. He got lots of rewards (one per 12 hours) for being cooperative and sometime soon we will all go to Iron Man 3 to celebrate him keeping his wires on for 3 days.

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