The short story:  Reagan has a generalized epilepsy that she was given medication for.  We will have an official diagnosis after the doctor reviews MRI reports and EEG reports. 

The Long Story:

On Wednesday, January 2nd, we went to visit the pediatric neurologist for the EEG.  Reagan had to be sleep deprived, with no more than 5-6 hours of sleep, no sugar and no caffeine.  We went the day before and got a motel so that we didn't have to try and keep her awake while driving down.  She tends to fall asleep easily in the car!  The reason she was to be sleep deprived was so that they could hopefully catch a seizure while she was having her EEG.  Apparently you're more prone to have a seizure when tired.  Unfortunately, while they were hooking her up to the machine, she had a seizure and they were not able to catch it on the machine while we were in the office.  The doctor and his medical assistant did see it and definitely believed it to be a seizure but we still needed to get one on EEG so that we could figure out what part of the brain the seizure is coming from.  After the in office EEG, they decided to send us home with a Track It pack where they leave all the leads attached to her head but glue them down and then she wears the machine in a little back pack on her back.  They had gauze taped around her head to hopefully hold all the leads in place.  She was not in the least bit happy with this idea nor with how it looked on her.  After we left the office, when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, she said it did not maker her look cute AT ALL!  When we got home, she marched straight to her room so that she could hide so nobody could see her.  I finally convinced her to come out and decorate it all with stickers and she was much happier with that!  Her grandparents and sisters and brother all commented on how cute it looked. 

Before we left the doctor's office on Wednesday, we were able to talk in depth with the doctor.  We didn't have an appointment to see him, but he worked us in over his lunch hour.  What a relief to talk to someone who knows a little something about seizures!  He dediced to try her on some medication to hopefully eliminate the convulsions and also requested that we try and get a seizure or two on video so that he can fully view exactly what is happening.  That has proved to be challenging because they go so fast!  He also wants her to get an MRI in the next couple of weeks before we see him again.  When we go back, we'll bring the MRI results and we'll discuss what's going on with the medication and how it's working.  At this point, he's calling the condition epilepsy, which just means that she's having or has had more than 2 seizures with no explanation as to what the cause is. 

By the time we had woke up yesterday morning, she had had 6 seizures that we know of since leaving the office that the machine had tracked.  We received a call from their office and they requested that we return by noon that day so that they can get the data off of the machine over their lunch hour to take a look at and hopefully take the machine off of her.  Once we got there, they were able to get enough data, so off the machine came!  After briefly looking at the data, the doctor confirmed that we were definitely dealing with seizures and he felt that they were generalized (which means coming from both sides of the brain) rather than partial (which would be just one side of the brain).  We had originally thought that they were partial because during her seizure, she tends to draw up the right side of her body.  We began her medication yesterday morning and after starting her medication, she only had one seizure all day!  That's a definite improvement!!  He had told us that it could take 3 days before the meds kicked in so we were pleased to see results this quickly!  We don't believe that she had any last night while she was sleeping, but we could have missed one, so we're not 100% sure.  It will be interesting to see how the medications continue to affect her!  We were also given a prescription for a medication that we would administer ******ly if she had a prolonged seizure, lasting longer than 3 minutes.  I can't even imagine that happening at this point....I pray I never have to deal with that, but I'll get the prescription filled, just in case! 

My how life has changed for us the last couple months.  Hopefully we'll start to see things get back to normal soon!  I'm looking forward to the day when Reagan can do things without worrying that what she does may cause a seizure to happen.