EEG

Zachary's EEG went really well last Friday. He stayed up two hours later than usual and just played with his books while we watched Jane Austen's Persuasion. Then he and I got up two hours earlier than usual. He was a little grumpy at being woken up, but no fussies. The hardest part was keeping him awake until it was time to go to the appointment - he kept trying to fall asleep on the floor!

While getting set up for the EEG, Zachary just laid on the bed and watched cartoons while the technician attached 23 nodes to his little head. She went on and on at how well behaved he was. There were two steps to attaching the nodes: the gal scrubbed the spot first and then used electrical paste to attach the node, then she covered the node with a bit of gauze. Zachary did not have to get his head shaved. After all the nodes were attached, she wrapped his head with more gauze to hold everything in place.

During the test, I had to hold Zachary's eyes closed for 10 seconds a couple times, but he never fussed - he thought it was funny! Then we did a strobe test where a strobe light flashes at several different frequencies (to see if the flashing light induces a seizure). Not only did the flashing light not bother Zachary, he thought it was a camera and kept smiling at it!

For the last part of the test the technician turned the lights down and left the room, hoping Zachary would sleep. This is why we had had to keep him up late and get him up early. But everything was too interesting - he was wide awake. The gal said that often happens. They still got good measurements though.

What was really neat, though, was to watch the computer screen. It showed four bands of brain waves and then a little screen of Zachary (there was a video camera trained on him.) So while watching the screen we could see what he was doing and what his brain waves were doing at the same time. For the most part they were evenly spaced, but when he laughed, some of them became denser and then when he tried to roll over, the brain waves were all over the place!!

We'll see the doctor (a pediatric neurologist) on Thursday to interpret the measurements for us.

Removing the nodes didn't take nearly as long, of course, as putting them on, but getting the paste out of his hair took forever! There was a sink in the room and the technician attached a spray nozzle to the faucet. It took at least twenty minutes of scrubbing his hair with shampoo and using lots of water to get all the stuff out. Fortunately I had Curtis' help holding him still!