I am pleased to report that Eliza's MRi was normal. No lesions, cysts, tumors or little green men crawling about in there. And it actually looked pretty spanky for a micro-preemie brain.
So what is causing this right sided weakness?
The jury is still out and I am waiting to hear from neurologist number two, but the "best" explanation is that Eliza's right sided weakness (mainly facial, but also apparent in Eliza's hand and gait) is simply the result of her extreme prematurity and nothing can really be done about it except perhaps thousands more hours of therapy to lessen the symptoms and a further diagnosis to come.
So the next time you hear a pregnant woman bitch and moan about how she "wishes this was over," or ask how she can bring on labor at 35 weeks since she is bored with her pregnancy or that her feet are swollen, or she has to pee every half hour, or that she is planning a 35 week c-section to accommodate her vacation schedule or that she very stupidly thinks that the 24 week mark is some magical mark at which her baby has reached viability and just needs a bit of fattening up, please, send her my way.
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Thank goodness it was normal. Some of the possible causes he had thought of at first were so scary.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you got the results so quickly, and glad that's normal, too.
ReplyDeleteGreat news that the MRI is normal, or even "spanky" love it!
ReplyDeleteSo my first response is to say "congrats" on the normal MRI but it seems to take away from the fact that nothing is solved. I am glad that nothing was found but I sure hope the docs figure it all out... down to the cough.
ReplyDeletePaige has left sided weakness which seemed to get worse around age 3. Some of the pics we have from back then show how her eye drooped. As she got older it only seemed to be really noticeable when she was a bit tired. When we moved to a new state, thus getting a new team of docs, her neuro told us that it was clearly due to her mild left sided CP. Hubby mentioned that all of her MRI's had been normal and the doc explained that not all MRI's will show CP. Just a thought.
And, if I hear a pregnant woman complain then I will send her to you (if she makes it past me first-lol)
Thanks Stacey. When the doctor's secretary called and said "the MRI is normal the doctor wants to see Eliza in 6 months" I paused and said "well Eliza's face isn't normal so 6 months seems like a long time to wait to figure this out." She was a bit perplexed.
ReplyDeleteThe predominant thought is that this is very mild CP. Eliza does have some mild right sided fine motor weakness and had "prefers" her left side in gross motor activities. (WOuldn;t you "prefer" the side that works better?) The symptoms are also worse when she is tired or upset.
Prematurity, the gift that never stops giving...