In preparation for the test, Dave and Clare and Calvin went out to run a couple of errands around 9pm (we decided to let Clare stay up late too to help keep Calvin company). The kids were so slap happy that when we put them to bed at 10:45, the still bounced off the walls for an hour.
Dave set his alarm and woke up Calvin at 3:45. They ate breakfast and then watched a movie. At around 6 I got up and Dave went back to bed for a nap. By the time I got up Calvin was so tired I couldn't let him sit down. He was quite pleasant and thought it was funny to say, "oh, I'm just going to go lay down and have a quick nap....."
We dropped off the girls with babysitters and headed for the hospital. It was a full time job for me to keep Calvin awake in the car!
AFter checking in and waiting, Calvin was brought to a quiet corner of the hospital. He laid down on a bed while the tech connected about 20 electrodes to his head. He was very patient. He was starting to fall asleep while he was holding still so I had to work to keep him awake. I think this irritated him. Once he was all hooked up the tech left the room and turned out the lights and asked Calvin to close his eyes. The hope is that he would fall asleep so that the Dr. could see him go into sleep and then come out of sleep. Calvin was not super cooperative and didn't want to close his eyes. Dave sat and talked with him to help him stay calm but he wouldn't rest his eyes! He said he needed to go to the bathroom. When we asked the tech to help us get him to the bathroom she came to help him get up with all of his wires attached but Calvin ripped them all off.
After going to the bathroom a new (more experienced) girl named Jen took over. The first tec, Venus, had told me it was only her 2nd day on the job. She had previously worked almost 20 years for the navy so though she knew what she was doing she didn't know how to work with kids. It was very kind of Jen to tell us she would re-set up all the electrodes. She was able to do so in about 5-10 minutes. (It had taken the first girl a good 20-30. She spoke to Calvin in a sweet and enthusiastic voice and he responded well to her. She told him that after she got him hooked up he would need to close his eyes for a few minutes so the Dr. could look at his brain waves. We also increased our bribe from in-n-out to a new lego set. Calvin was obedient to her and afters a few minutes of keeping his eyes closed he fell asleep!
The tech let Calvin sleep for about 10 minutes and then came in the room to wake him up. He was in a pretty good mood when he woke up and was cooperative for the rest of the test. He was asked to blow on a pinwheel for 3 minutes to hyperventilate him. Then she put a strobe light directly over his face and he looked into the light while it fired. Sometimes he was supposed to have his eyes closed when the light fired.
The rest of our day was the same as always -- we swam with some friends and then Calvin had scouts in the evening.
The results of the EEG will be read by a neurologist within a couple of days and a report will be sent to our Primary Care DR. I am assuming he will call us when he gets those. If we are lucky, the EEG will be a classic case of benign rolandic epilepsy which has a distinct pattern on the EEG. However, finding epilepsy on an EEG is a tricky thing. Dave has had patients with very serious seizure disorders come into the hospital and stay for days being monitored round the clock and nothing helpful shows up on the EEG. Dave says he has even taken off the top of the skull to place electrodes directly on the brain to try and find seizures for some desperate patients. That is why I say, if we are lucky, we will see something on this first test which will tell us more information.
I scheduled an appointment with the neurologist at the end of July so that we can discuss what to do.
Poor Dave who was pretty sleep deprived himself got paged last night as we were going to bed and had to go in! He didn't get home 'til around 3:30.
And, Mr. Calvin after having 2 days at home didn't want to go to school today. I got him on the bus by buying him a new app for the kindle fire, figuring $1 for a new app is cheaper than the 10 or whatever it would cost in gas if I have to drive him down to school. Calvin got on the bus at 7:20 but the bus brought him back home at 7:40 because he was being too difficult to control on the bus. So, it's time to pack up and take Calvin to school and then stop at dog beach! It is a beautiful summer day!
good thing for dog beach!
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