eSpecially Ben

In January, Ben had a video EEG at the hospital. In a nutshell, Ben was hooked up to 20 wires for 24 hours in a hospital room with little to no nursing assistance. So when we had the "opportunity" to get more information about Ben's seizures, I figured we would try the Ambulatory EEG . New experiences are good, right? Plus, torture at home has got to be better than torture in the hospital. All 20 electrodes took about one hour to apply.   If you have not done an Ambulatory EEG , I hope this will help. Here are photos of the process and some things we did to make the experience tolerable for all of us. 1. Bring help to the doctor's office. Gluing the wires to Ben's head was difficult again - he knew what he was fighting for this time! I also needed the help for the car ride home - Ben could have done a lot of damage to the wires while I drove home. Ben was held down by three of us. 2. Keep your regular routine. Once home, we planned activities f

Definitely the BEFORE photo! Ben was scheduled to have this Video EEG in December, but he came down with bronchitis and a double ear infection so it was postponed until this week. We are lucky this happened because I read a post on 5 Minutes for Special Needs about EEGs and asked the blogger a few questions. She emailed me with answers and added a lot of other information. Without her insight, I would have been unprepared for this experience. Thank you Gina at Special Happens . Because I lacked information to even ask the right questions, I thought I would document our visit and others can learn from our experience. Of course, hospitals and doctors are all different, but this will at least give an overview of what to expect. What to Bring Button front shirts - once the electrodes are on, nothing is getting over that head Extra pants, comfy clothes for you and your child DVDs or Videotapes, music, games, books - some hospitals provide these things, but ones from home may work