Disappointing News

Well, I got the call from Dr. Bertrand this afternoon.  His hippocampus is scarred & damaged, but the amount of brain damage he has is so profound that removing just that small part wouldn't help.  It doesn't mean that we can't move forward with the testing to see if he would be able to qualify for surgery, but it does mean that it will be more complicated. 
I don't think Dr. Bertrand had looked at Teddy's MRI in years.  She pointed out to me that he doesn't have a right temporal lobe at all.  This wasn't any news to me, but I think it was to her!  Then she said that his damage reaches back to the occipital lobe.  Because of this large area of damage, there's no way of knowing where in it that the seizures are starting.  They could be starting at different places when he has different seizures.  This makes a video EEG a must before we can even think about surgery.
Another disappointment is the possible side effects he could have should we do surgery.  If the seizures start in the region of occipital lobe damage & therefore that area needs to be removed, he could have some vision loss.  It would probably eliminate his left side peripheral vision.  Also we don't know what part of his brain now controls his left arm & leg, since the part that normally does is gone.  If the area of seizure activity happens to be located where those movements are controlled, then surgery could give him left sided hemiparesis.
As you can see, nothing is cut & dry.  We will most probably go ahead with the video EEG as soon as he's out of school.  But we really won't know if he would even be a candidate for surgery until after we capture a seizure on EEG & the neurosurgery team at Children's has gone over all his testing & history.
Not the news we'd hoped for today, but we're kinda used to not getting the easy way out!  He has an appointment with Dr. Holtzman on Friday--she's the psychologist that works with kids in the neuro unit.  She's going to help him with his fear of EEG leads & needles, we hope!  I'll update again after that.