ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Epilepsy is when the brain has an electrical misfire that causes multiple seizures. And depending on where the misfire takes place, the seizure will have different effects, such as freezing you or causing convulsions that result in you passing out.
Today, you can find Kaylee Hill stretching, flipping, and tumbling with a smile on her face. But last year, that wasn’t the case.
“She walked up to the door and she’s like, what do you need next, next, next? I’m like, baby, what are you doing?” recalled her mother, Kaci.
They didn’t know it yet, but Kaylee was having a seizure.
“Kinda like anxiety or like, whenever you’re in the ocean, you get like, caught under a wave and like, you’re just waiting to come out of it,” described Kaylee.
Once diagnosed, she was referred to Satya Gedela, MD, pediatric epileptologist, division chief of neurology, and vice chair of pediatrics for Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida, for treatment, as her medications didn’t work.
“The chance of somebody to become seizure-free after two well-tried medications fail is less than five percent,” he told Ivanhoe.
The next option was surgery. And to map out which part of Kaylee’s brain needed to be removed, Greg Olavarria, MD, chief of neurosurgery at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida, was brought in with a robot named ROSA.
“She’s able to, within one millimeter accuracy, place electrodes in Kaylee’s brain and create a map of her seizures,” he explained.
The seizure location was near Kaylee’s language base. In order to do the surgery, Kaylee had to give up cheerleading.
“It was so upsetting. Like I thought that I was just never gonna be able to do it again,” she said.
Two operations later…
“When I saw her in the ICU shortly after surgery, talking and responding, I knew that we had preserved those eloquent areas of the brain,” recalled Dr. Olavarria.
After three months of no seizures, Kaylee finally got the news she was hoping for.
“When we told her she can cheerlead, oh my God, she gave me all hugs and she was so happy,” said Dr. Gedela.
“As soon as I got to step on the mat again, I just, like all of me, just like came alive,” Kaylee told Ivanhoe.
Now she is enjoying life and even became one of the few freshman to be accepted to her high school varsity cheer team!
The types of seizures Kaylee had are called focal seizures with intact awareness, which meant the seizure stayed on one part of the brain and she was aware of the seizure while it was happening. These are different than seizures with impaired awareness, where the person doesn’t know they are having a seizure, and generalized tonic-clonic seizures, formally known as grand mal, which can take over the whole brain.
Contributors to this news report include: Marcy Wilder, Associate Producer; Matt Goldschmidt, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.
Sources:
https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/epilepsy.html
https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/seizure.html
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22789-seizure
* For More Information, Contact: (689) 304-9164
or go to: https://www.nemours.org/services/pediatric-neurology.html
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