Children & Youth with Epilepsy

Hannah

Hannah

Hannah started having seizures when she was just 6 months old. She went from having one every few days to one almost every day and some days cluster seizures that she couldn't wake up out of. Her trigger for her seizures was crying. As you can imagine, keeping a baby from crying is nearly impossible.

It took months to get her in the best care. After seeing multiple doctors trying to diagnose and get control of her seizures, as well as multiple hospital stays, we were finally referred to Sick Kids Hospital. Hannah's amazing team at Sick Kids put her through all the testing (multiple prolonged EEG's, MRI CT, MEG, development assessments, genetic testing) to determine she has a 'birth mark' on her brain as well as a genetic mutation. The idea of brain surgery to remove the mark on her brain was discussed, but because of her genetic mutation, it was decided what was best for Hannah was to try and keep control of her seizures with medication, which finally seemed to be working after being on a few combinations.

Hannah has finally gone 7 months without a seizure. In her 2 years of life, this has been the longest time without one. We feel so fortunate that even though Hannah had a difficult first year, she was put into amazing hands of people trying to do what was best for her. There were so many tests performed to get to the root cause of her seizures, to find out why and the best action to take to stop them from happening, it was just incredible. The genetic mutation Hannah has is known to cause severe developmental delays, but we are so fortunate to have a thriving, happy, loving, full of spunk little girl.

Seizures affect everyone in the family, including siblings. Hannah's big brother Bryson didn't understand what was happening when his little sister would have a seizure, but he knew everyone was upset. He remembers Hannah would sleep a lot after having a seizure. Their mom, Drew, recounts that Bryson would get very worried and protective of her. He knew crying was her trigger, so sometimes he would get worried when his parents were out or when she would get hurt, that she would have a seizure. Drew remembers Bryson commenting that if Hannah didn't have a seizure that he was happy she was OK.

Children and youth with epilepsy

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