Our War Path Against Seizures

We are on the war path to battle Jace's seizures!

Jace is scheduled for surgery on Nov. 16th and Nov. 22nd.

We have known this was a possibility for some time but now its real.

Jace had an EEG done in August to see how his seizures have changed - if at all from December.

We received the results and found that there was no great improvement and very little change. The only real change seemed to be that the focus of the seizures were clearer.

With these results Dr. Von Allmen suggested that it was time to discuss surgery.

We trust her opinion and we met with her to discuss. She referred us to the neurosurgeon, Dr. Tandon.

We met with Dr. Tandon and discussed the options.

He said we can do grid placements, depth electrodes, or none of these and just remove the tubers.

After he met with the neurological panel and discuss Jace's case they all agreed that he needed to have the grip placement done before the resection.

In their terms this will be Phase 2 and Phase 3 of epilepsy surgery.

Basically on November 16th Jace will have grid electrodes put on his brain in the left frontal area.

This is Phase 2 of the surgery.

This is what the grids look like:

The flat part will be on the surface of the brain and the other end will be connected to wires (just like an EEG would be). This will map his brain precisely. Having this detailed mapping will ensure that no part of the brain will be removed that is essential or that is not causing seizures.

He will have to keep this on the surface of his brain until the 22nd.

On November 22nd we will start the Phase 3.

They will remove the electrodes from his brain then remove the area of the brain that is causing the seizures.

We were told we may be able to come home with in three days as long as all goes well.

We will miss Thanksgiving but this will totally be worth it.

As scared and worried about this whole ordeal, we are excited.

We are excited to see that little boy emerge out of the seizure land he has been stuck in for WAY too long! 

We ask for everyone to pray for Jace, the doctors, nurses as well as Justin and me.