neurology visit

we made it to ft. worth and back yesterday, and i'm still trying to decide whether the news is good or not. one piece of good news is that the eeg came back clean, which the doctor said happens often and gives ezra a better chance of growing out of the seizures. strangely, however, the doctor and the nurse practitioner (who we saw first, performed the medical exam, and obtained ezra's medical history) could not agree on whether or not ezra had epilepsy and whether or not we should start him on medication. we first spoke to the nurse practitioner who said he cannot be considered epileptic yet because the standard procedure is that someone has to have two seizures 24 hours apart from one another; this was corroborated by some literature that the practice hands out to all its patients. since ezra's four seizures all happened on the same day, the nurse practioner told us he would not be started on medication yet. then the doctor came in and said the exact opposite. he said he considers four seizures in one day as four different seizures, and he wants ezra to start taking medication immediately. confused, we asked the doctor about the 24-hour policy, and he said that he does not subscribe to that philosophy. then he left, and the nurse practitioner reiterated that most doctors in the practice subscribe to the 24-hour policy and if she were us, she would consider waiting to take the medicine until after his second set of seizures. so where does that leave us? confused.

so what should we do? i think we will likely start ezra on his medication since that is what the neurologist told us to do, but unfortunately, we don't feel very good about it. he will be taking trileptol. one of our fears is that once he starts taking the medication, the doctors will be afraid to take him off. if there is anyone out there who reads this blog whose child has epilepsy or if there is anyone out there with a medical background and an opinion on the matter, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

we did contact our pediatrician, who is dearly loved and well-trusted, and she, too, concurs that ezra should begin the medication. also, ezra is scheduled for an MRI in march. the pediatric neurologist would like to see more detail of ezra's brain, hence the second procedure after the cat scan. ezra will be sedated for that procedure since it will require him to lie still for 30-minutes in a "yowd, noisy" machine. :) our follow-up appointment with the pediatric neurologist is now set for september. we are thankful that we got in on the rotation for here in town so we won't have to travel to fort worth every time ezra needs a check up. the physician who comes down is the lead physician at Cook's neurology department and reknowned for his excellence in his field, so that is a huge praise, too, that from this point forward ezra will see him.