June 2013

Almost like turning on a switch, Erica's episodes ramped up drastically as soon as school let out.

June 6, 2013:  Sue witnessed an alarming episode that immediately triggered the notion that what Erica was experiencing was neurological, not psychological.  The episode lasted about 3 minutes and Erica had no memory of what occurred during those 3 minutes.  During the episode, Erica mumbled gibberish, stared off, fumbled with her hands, wandered a bit, and was completely unresponsive during it all.  Sue even pinched her hard to see if she could get her to snap out of it, which she didn't.  She was absolutely exhausted afterwards.  Erica saw her pediatrician the very next morning.  Pediatrician agreed that the episodes seemed more neurological, ordered an EEG and gave a referral to Children's Hospital to see a neurologist.

June 7 - 13, 2013:  Erica's episodes worsened throughout the week and was experiencing intense ones several times a day.  Her EEG was not till June 17 and her appointment with a neurologist was not till June 26.  After falling off a bike and experiencing incontinence during an episode, we decided we needed answers sooner than later.  We went to Children's Hospital ER on the 13th.  After speaking with the neurologist on call, they suspected that Erica was in fact experiencing seizures, more specifically, complex partial seizures.  They immediately started her on anti-seizure medication and sent us home with instructions to return if seizures continued and plan on the regularly scheduled EEG and neurologist appointment.

Erica still keeping a smile on her face!

June 17:  After almost pulling an all-nighter, Sue and Erica arrived at her EEG appointment sleep deprived as requested.  Boy, that was a tough night trying to keep us both awake.  Erica's EEG went as planned.  She experienced no "bad feelings" or seizures during the test.  But it wasn't more than 10 minutes after getting unhooked from the EEG that she had a pretty bad seizure in the car on the way home.  Ugghh...  The results from the EEG came back normal.

Trying to stay up through the night doing Extreme Dot to Dots!

Erica's EEG

June 26:  We had all been patiently awaiting Erica's appointment with a neurologist.  She had been taking anti-seizure medication, however she continued to have many seizures.  In fact, the seizures intensified quite a bit.  There were days that she had multiple seizures and slept for hours afterwards to recover.  Needless to say, June was not a fun month for the Martino family.  We met with Dr. Park at Children's Hospital for a very lengthy but informative meeting.  Erica was diagnosed with epilepsy.  Every last detail that Erica shared about her episodes pointed directly to complex partial seizures.  For all of us, we had never heard of this type of seizure.  It turns out that there are many forms of seizures, grand mal being the type most people are familiar with.  Dr. Park sent us home with lots of information regarding epilepsy and a medication plan.  Our goal obviously was to stop the seizures, but finding the right medication and dosage may take some time.  In the meantime, Erica was pretty limited with activities that would keep her safe, which did not include summertime favorites like swimming and biking.  An MRI and more testing would be scheduled.

Through this all, Erica continued to maintain a mostly positive attitude.  We tried our best to help Erica have as normal a summer life as possible.  Thanks to her good friends for keeping her spirits up!

Erica and MJ

 

 

Leah, Sam (never serious in photos), and Erica working on Lego Robotics

Daelyn, Sanne, and Erica