EEG

Kai had an EEG done to find out what is going on in his brain.  They wanted him sleep deprived beforehand, so that he will sleep during the test, but you can't tell a non-verbal, non-understanding child when and when not to sleep.  It just doesn't happen.  We tried to have him go to bed two hours later, and wake up two hours earlier as they recommended, but he was still wide awake during the test.


First they put probes all over his head.  It took quite a while because they had to be precisely placed and they had to stay on.  Then they covered all the probes with a white gauze. 

J laid down on the bed with Kai and held him.  He kept trying to get the gauze off his face.  I actually loved to watch him do that because it was an intentional action; "hey, this thing on my head is bugging me, I want to get it off."


They turned off the lights and did the strobe test.  I tell you, I don't get seizures, but that test is enough to give anyone seizures.  Luckily (or unluckily?), Kai didn't have a visible seizure during the test.  I had a slight headache the rest of the day after that, though.  They stuck a light (almost like a clamp desk lamp) inches away from Kai's face, and did a series of strobe tests.  I think it was about ten to fifteen minutes total. 

After the strobe test they turned on some relaxing music and left the room for 30 minutes.  This is the part where Kai was supposed to miraculously fall asleep.  It didn't happen, but it was a nice, quiet half an hour, and Kai was at least peacefully playing with his fingers in his mouth while his daddy was holding him.


He loved when the test was over and he got all the probes off his head.

As for the results of the test...well, we still haven't heard back from neurology.  I have called twice and left messages.  Apparently, they are backed up.  We were able to get the results from Kai's pediatrician, but he wasn't able to tell us much other than the results came back "abnormal due to seizures."  Well, duh.  I guess they really were seizures then.  Kai's pediatrician said there was a lot of jargon that only the neurologist would know what it meant, so we are in the waiting boat.

I suppose the consolation is that if it were something serious, they would have gotten back to us already, right?