How often do you go to the doctor for one thing and end up finding something else?
That’s how the visit to the pediatric neurologist turned out a couple of weeks ago and it’s a wonderful reminder to never ever ignore my mom-gut. (Seriously, that thing is always right.)
A few weeks ago (a couple of days after finding out about The Cansuh, actually), we finally got in to see the pediatric neurologist about my 6 year old’s tic. (You may remember we’ve made some dietary changes to eliminate colors and preservatives - we’re still doing that.) The neurologist observed him and tested him and said the tic may be more pronounced by things like stress or colorings but it won’t go away by eliminating these things.
He doesn’t think it’s Tourrette’s, though, and he believes that the tics will probably not follow him to adulthood. Which makes me happy.
After the testings and observations, we had an EEG done (ps. seeing all those wires on his head broke my heart! He was cool with it though. Overall he’s just a cool kid. He felt like a robot. He looked like one too. Meantime, I was in agony seeing him in wires.)
The EEG showed irregular wave patterns that appear to be “epileptic tendencies.” This is totally unrelated to the tic, by the way. “Epileptic tendencies” does not mean epilepsy, but it does mean he could possibly seizure one day (or not — we will never know until it happens.) This caught me completely off guard, to be honest. I have no idea what to do in the case of a seizure and I’m very thankful he’s never had one so far because I would’ve had no idea whatsoever what to do.
So today we’re having a brain MRI just to make sure there’s nothing else wrong. (I’m not even going to entertain the idea that something is wrong right now. I’m just going to assume this is going to turn out ok. Mkay? Also, finding “epileptic tendencies” is fairly common on EEGs.)
What I did learn though, was that MRIs for kids are so much cooler than they are for adults. I get claustrophobic just being in there from the waist down, not even full body. So I feel bad for anyone who has to go in the whole way, I think I’d die. Oh my poor little man. I’m going to be standing by secretly in fear while telling him this is the coolest thing ever full well knowing it’s not. I hate that part of this job.
So they were going to sedate him for the MRI, until I found out about this cool thing they do now. First of all, they have these movie goggles!
Movie goggles!
It reminds me of Total Recall, really, where you wear the goggles and it plays the movie. (Only he’s not going to be in the movie for real and living a double life with a spy wife or anything — at least I don’t think so anyway.)
They also get to wear headphones so they can hear the movie instead of those awful scanner sounds. So I had him pick out a couple options for his viewing pleasure and he picked out Star Wars (Empire Strikes Back – my favorite) and Wall-E. He’ll only be in there for 12 minutes, but he needs to not move his head at.all. And if we do the movie option, we can avoid sedation, which would be nice, really.
I sat him down and told him that we were having an “X-ray on his head” to take pictures and make sure everything is ok. He immediately wanted to see a video of what the machine looks like so I Googled and found this one on You Tube made especially to show children what to expect (it’s made for kids ages 4-10) that shows the machine, gives examples of the sounds and shows an actual little guy going in and getting the scan done. (Bookmark it in case you have to show your child for any reason what this is!)
He was completely glued to this video.
Having done this ahead of time prepared him enough to feel confident about it and even better, in control of it. I’m glad we did this.
My biggest problem I think is going to be the fact that he can’t have breakfast and won’t be able to eat until like NOON. I pity me. He’s going to be a BEAR.
He went to bed after I explained this whole thing, and of course then I found this other video, which I wish I could have shown him. This one is of the actual movie goggles, the ones the lady told me about.
I hope it goes well. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to use the sedation, so I suppose it could go either way. We’ll see!
(no whammy no whammy no whammy…)
Meantime, how cool are these movie goggles? Have you ever seen these before?
(And why can’t they do this for grown-ups?!)
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Fingers crossed mama!
Jeanne recently posted..The Avengers Red Carpet Vs. The Wrap I’d Rather Forget
Praying that all is well!
Janeen (Chupieandjsmama) recently posted..Wheat In My Salad?
My 8-year old had to go for a series of MRIs during the diagnostic process for his speech delay. I wish our Children’s Hospital had the movie goggles option! He had to be sedated three times and each time his fear of the IV got worse and worse and it took more and more sedative to knock him out (and more and more people to hold him still while the needle was going in). He went down kicking and crying and came out the same way. I am a cold-hearted former nurse and had my heart hardened to doing oogy things to kids, but having it done to my own baby reduced me to tears every single time.
I hope you get good news about your little guy!
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So much going on Christie! Hope all goes well. One of my grandsons has Tourrette’s & has been on meds for years & does really well. He is even close to the smartest in his class.
HUGS!
Jody – Fit at 54 recently posted..I am NOT The Biggest Loser
I haven’t heard of the movie goggles – but I love it! And I agree, adults should totally get to use them, too! Speaking of Mom-gut…We just came from the eye doctor. My mom and I had both noticed that my toddlers eyes are sometimes crossed. I’ve mentioned it to my husband, but he was sure everything was fine. I wanted to take her in just to be sure as I’d heard it’s important for kiddos to have eye exams at ages 1, 3 and 5 and she hadn’t ever had an exam. It turns out that she actually needs glasses
I was so bummed and unprepared for that turn out. But, it is super important that we found the problem now vs later. I’m so glad we took her in when we did.
Just caught this post…when do you get the results back?
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