Back from the doctor...

Now what!?!

One thing that I loved about the Little Man's last doctor was how thorough he was. He was the ONLY doctor to ever look in to blood sugar levels, due full blood workups, and to do an EEG.

There is a big correlation to bipolar and certain types of seizures. His doctor requested an EEG back in August to rule out these seizures so that we could move forward in his treatment plan (ie: start him on a mood stabilizer that is also an anti-seizure med and therefore mask seizures if he was having them). I believe his EEG was done on the 4th of August, right around there anyway. After that time he was started on Depakote and his behavior improved dramatically.

When we went for the EEG the tech was great - he was wonderful with the Little Man and tried hard to ease my fears. He was very chatty while hooking the boy up to wire after wire (using the 'bird poop' to stick them to his hair). I noticed at the end that his demeanor changed, drastically. I even spoke to my family about how nervous I became due to this mood shift. They all assured me not to worry, and when I never heard back on the test - I did just that, not worry.

I was told that if there were issues on the EEG that I would hear back in a matter of days with a game plan for moving forward. I called 4 days after the test and was told the results were not in but that I would be contacted if there were concerns. I never heard back and then I forgot all about it.

At the doctors yesterday I inquired about the results. What I was told nearly stunned me. She read the report, told me about the spikes, the low seizure threshold, and the part at the end that said "Clinical follow-up is necessary". What???? My kid is having seizures and I was never told? It's been four months!

As soon as I got home I called neurology and sat on hold for ages. I finally gave up and called the pediatrician instead. Our pediatrician was voted one of the top 100 doctors (the only pediatrician on the list) in Seattle for 2007 - we LOVE him! I left a message with the nurse and should hear back on Thursday from him (if not sooner). I need to know where we go from here, whether we follow-up with him, get referred to Children's...what?

There has got to be a silver lining in all of this because the Little Man's plate can't hold much more. From the parent side of things - I almost wish for seizures. It would be much more acceptable in the 'real' world, the world where people are cruel and say mean things in public when your child is having an episode. I know people think that the bipolar is an easy out for his behavior - something that I try not to hide behind. People think that he should be able to control the bipolar, if it was a seizure, they would never expect that of him.

Maybe this will be a big answer to a lot of questions.