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Parents of teens that has had left temporal surgery
Thu, 11/30/2006 - 23:19Topic: Surgery and Devices
I have a 16 year old that is in the early stages of being check for possiblity of surgery. We go December 4th for just regular EEG and MRI. No overnight stays or anything yet. I was just wondering is there any moms or dads that has had to make this decision? I don't know I was kinda okay with it until they started talking about the invasive EEG. Her assigned doctor at Emory in Atlanta is Dr. Helmers very nice lady but fear has taken hold of me and the more I read the more I'm freakin out. She has had seizures since she was 5 years old. No meds stop the seizures she usually has 2 a month if we get lucky and don't have one then the following month she'll have 4. I can't even begin to name all the med's she has tried, we have the VNS implant which did nothing at all. So any help. Though I am scared I want real facts of what you had to go through after surgery as far as any loss of abilities, pain so I kinda know what she is up against in the end prayer and God will help make the decision but just want to know.
Re: Parents of teens that has had left temporal surgery
Submitted by chumtochatwith on Fri, 2006-12-01 - 17:14
Hi Deb, It would be a hard decision to make for your children. I had a left temporal lobectomy end of Sept of this year and I am doing great. I had up to four seizures a day and haven't had any since surgery day. My seizures were triggered by music so it was impossible to avoid totally. I have been listening to music too with no effect so thank god for that. I haven't had any memory loss whatsoever and haven't noticed any deficits anywhere so I am very thankful for that. It was a rough year leading up to the surgery for the whole family but it was well worth it. I was in a great deal of pain for the first week or so but the hospital staff was really good and ensured that I had some pain meds in me. I also had quite a bit of nausea and that lasted for about three weeks but then that also disappeared slowly but surely. I hope that this helps. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Good luck and God bless. Chumtochatwith