Day 4. Today went a little smoother. But still not the best. Hopefully after a few more days, Dylan will stop fighting us and just give in and relax. The therapy does not hurt him at all, he just has to hold still, something he dislikes very much!
We met with Dr. Alex today. He is one of 3 doctors that are in charge of the program. He is the one who insisted that Dylan gets a spot in the study, even though the other doctor running the program has a ton of candidates. Go Dr. Alex! We got to see Dylan’s EEG today and were able to go over it with the doc. I will try to explain it the best way I can in normal human terms. Basically Dylan’s cells in his brain are only firing off at a low level and not what they should be. The average brain cell range is between 8-13 and Dylan is barely at a 6. He said that from the EEG, they would expect to see Dylan have significant delays because his brain is just not functioning the way it was meant to. He said that his EEG does not look like the typical case of a child with autism either. That was interesting. We have never had him diagnosed with anything other than a cognitive disability (mental retardation), but have wondered if he was on the autism spectrum.
This is Dylan's first EEG...if you can read this, then you are WAY smarter than me :) I just want to have a copy on here for future reference. But basically the blue lines need to go further in the graph....I think???
Something else that many of you may not know is that Dylan has been having seizures. This is new to us. They started at the beginning of February (and one in January) and he has had 10 that we have seen. They last about 10 seconds and he is completely “gone” during that time. As soon as it is over, he is back to his silly self. The docs don’t seem too worried about it at this time and we are just watching him to see if he gets any worse. This treatment can also help with the seizures. With regular EEGs, we should be able to see the part of his brain that is having the seizures and target that with the therapy to help. His last seizure was a week ago today, so that is good.
I finally understand a little more about what the therapy does. Basically the magnetic stimulus is working out the cells in Dylan’s brain. They are weak and they don’t want to work hard, so the magnetic shocks are making them work harder. This is supposed to cause the cells to work harder on their own and then fix the problems on their own in the process. Does that make sense? The doc talked about one patient they had that had severe autism and was very low functioning. Two years after being treated, the boy shows absolutely no signs of autism and is a perfectly healthy little boy. The brain is a magnificent and incredible thing….and no wonder, look WHO created it! We should be able to see a change in Dylan’s cells on the next EEG. That is what will give us a good baseline of whether or not it is working for him. Please pray with us that his brain does well at the “Gym”….they need a good work out and they need to get on board! I cannot even begin to tell you how incredibly amazing it would be to have a conversation with my little boy. I desire that so much. I know that if this does not work, then that is ok too. But I know that we serve an almighty and powerful God who can do more than we can ask or imagine. So I am asking for a miracle. Can you pray with me and ask for one too?!
And here are a few photos from our beach fun today...the kids completely wore themselves out and passed out at 6! YAY!!! One of these days I will bring out my big girl camera, but for now, iphone photos will have to do :) ENJOY!!
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