Encephalitis Cases
Jaisha
That day was about to turn into my worst nightmare. The decision was made to move her to the Intensive Care Unit, however, before we went down there the doctors wanted to do a CAT Scan of her brain. The doctor in the ICU put her on a C-PAP machine to force air into her nose so that she would stop having apnec spells. After about an hour on the C-PAP machine she was still having apnec episodes so the decision was made to ventilate her. I could not believe this was happening; everything was spiraling out of control my sweet precious angel from heaven was losing her grasp on life she was being placed on life support.
The third day on life support and still in Intensive Care my answer came; she had possible encephalitis, inflammation of the brain. The doctors did not know what was causing it. Another spinal tap was preformed to look for herpes and meningitis both causes of encephalitis, both came back negative on the first spinal tap, and subsequently came back negative on the second. After ten days in the hospital and no answers we were being sent home, however, before we left another MRI was preformed to check the inflammation. The doctors they said that the frontal lobe of Jaisha's brain had damage. As well as inflammation surrounding the ventricles and in a portion of the white matter in the back of her brain. As we were going home the doctors told us to go home and treat her like to a "normal baby", they told us that we would tell them how she is doing. Update #1: Jaisha was taken off of the seizure medication when she was just four months old because she finally had a normal EEG, and she has had absolutely no seizure activity since then. Update #2: 15 months since we left Primary Children's and since then Jaisha has been to her Neurologist three times, at that visit she had a perfectly normal neurological exam, the doctor was elated he said that if he did not know she had; had something wrong with her brain he would never know. Update #3: 2/18/05 Jaisha is still doing well it has been over three years since she was diagnosed, and she continues to have normal neurological exams. Jaisha had a slight seizure about a week ago and this is her first one since she was 9 days old, we are still waiting to do an EEG, who knows if it was related to her diagnosis or not. *Jaisha's EEG results came back abnormal. However, I declined putting her on medication and she has not had another seizure since. Update #4: 1/16/06 - Still seizure free!! Jaisha is 4 years old and doing awesome! I still follow up with her neurologist just because they think her progress is astounding. She is in pre-school, dance and behaves just like any other 4 year old. I do not know what the future holds for our little angel but I am eternally grateful to all of our family, friends, doctors and nurses who took care of, and prayed for Jaisha and most of all I am thankful to God for all the miracles that he performs everydayThank you so much for reading our story please feel free to email me. For all of the parents out there who are struggling with this have hope, miracles can happen, and children are amazing!!!Thank You. Shanda
Orem, Utah U.S.A.
Posted: February 8, 2003
