Second neuro and MRI

The week after starting V on his lamictal, the much-awaited appointment with this highly knowledgeable neurologist arrived. We had to wait for a full two hours before the doctor showed up – there was no apology, given that he had made this three year old wait for so long. We respected the fact that he was knowledgeable but did not agree with the attitude. Besides, he didn't add anything to the medication/diagnosis. The two things he said though that were discovered much later were that he would most likely have a learning disability and his spatial reasoning would most likely be impacted. The term learning disability meant nothing to both of us – I mean he was all of three. Like I said earlier, he was always different from his sister. If he didn't know his letters, it wasn't something that we thought was important. He did like doing puzzles, building, other games.

            However, with the combination of the constant seizures and the medication his brain was undergoing a transformation. This boy whose vocabulary was super at age two couldn't remember words, was having a problem expressing himself. His short term memory had started getting impacted in a very big way(in turn his long term memory too) and we didn't have a clue at the time. The most important thing was – give us that magical wand to stop the seizures instantly.

            The detailed MRI followed, again under sedation. Again, the hospital staff was excellent in their dealings with us and V so much so that V actually enjoyed his time in the hospital. He did just fine other than feeling drowsy the rest of the day. The result of the scan showed that V had a dilated vein in his right temporal lobe which was most likely the cause of his seizures. Other than finding out about the abnormal cluster and the dilated vein which didn't help either his seizures or the diagnosis it seemed like a pointless exercise which is why when the MRI was suggested to us yet again by a neurologist in Mumbai, we refused to put him through this again. After all, it seemed like each neurologist had his/her preference of medication and everybody was doing a trial and error of recommending one drug after another. When was this story going to have a satisfactory ending?