Noah's EEG experiences

Well, we've had a busy last couple of months. We took Noah to Sutter Roseville Hospital to get an EEG, electroencephalogram- {taken from WebMD} a test that measures and records the electrical activity of your brain. Special sensors (electrodes) are attached to your head and hooked by wires to a computer. The computer records your brain's electrical activity on the screen or on paper as wavy lines. Certain conditions, such as seizures, can be seen by the changes in the normal pattern of the brain's electrical activity. EEG is the most useful and important test in confirming a diagnosis of epilepsy.

Here's our sweet little Noah, all happy and excited to take the test. We were instructed to keep him up until midnight the night before and then wake him up at 5am and give him a big pancake breakfast. Basically, they wanted him sleep deprived and full and happy to take a nap. We tried to prepare him a bit ahead of time but it wasn't enough. When we got into the testing room he started to get a bit scared. (He's been through a lot lately). It took us an HOUR to get him to finally let the technician to prep him for the test. The prep work takes a long time too!

(Here he is giving himself "bunny ears")

First the guy needed to draw blue dots all over his head where he would place the electrodes. Then he rubs the dots off with a q-tip. Then he puts a glop of glue on all the dots where he then placed the electrodes and covered them with cotton balls. There were 32 electrodes all over his head and a couple on his chest and neck. He was violently fighting us to avoid all this. It was very sad to make him do it. Once he gave in he realized it didn't hurt and he was okay with it all. Once he was all prepped the tech turned the lights off and told him to get comfortable and take a nap. He just sat on Dave's lap and slept there. He only got to sleep for like 30 minutes then the test was done. We were glad to be done and get home. I took him to Target afterward to get an ICEE and pick a toy for being so good.

We also took him a week later to do an MRI-Magnetic Resonance Imaging
{WebMD}
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a test that uses a magnetic field and pulses of radio wave energy to make pictures of organs and structures inside the body. In many cases, MRI gives different information about structures in the body than can be seen with an X-ray, ultrasound, or computed tomography (CT) scan. MRI also may show problems that cannot be seen with other imaging methods.

For this test we had to go downtown. He had to be given general anesthesia for this one. That was a little scary but he's done that twice before with his eye surgeries so we're used to it. He prepared him better this time so he wasn't as scared. He did so well! No pictures to share from that because we couldn't be with him during that. He was pretty funny coming out of the anesthesia. He couldn't walk too well and then was just really cranky. He kept demanding chocolate. That's not really like him at all so we kind of giggled. When we met with the Pediatric Neurologist we were informed that the EEG results came back abnormal and that we would need more testing. GREAT! So glad to hear! (heavy sarcasm) I've got more pics from our next adventure, the 24 HOUR EEG!!! Stay tuned.....