team brendon

Arianna once a very active little girl. She loves cheerleading and she’s a joy to be around. She is a very sweet giving little girl. Her family says she is very loving and is always worrying about everyone else.

Arianna started having seizures at 7 years old. They started as facial seizures, and then started changing into a lot of different seizures. The Dr. called them partial complex seizures. All of our lives have changed since the seizures started.She was very afraid when one would come on. Sometimes she would have an aura, she called it a “bad smell”. This was one of the ways that we could prepare for a seizure. Other times we would have no warning. Her seizures would make her left side go limp and she would thrash around and stare. Her eyes would look glassy and big. She had 20-25 seizures per month. Her first Dr. tried a number of different seizure medication combinations. They would help for a couple of weeks and then we were right back where we started. From this point the Dr’s started doing tests on her. Arianna was referred to Dr. O’Donovan at wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. we spent 5 days in the Epilepsy monitoring unit to catch her episodes on film. She had electrodes glued to her head and was plugged into a unit. While hooked to the unit, they had to catch an episode and give her a radiation injection so that they could take her for a spect test. After this, she had to have an MRI. The first MRI, they gave her an injection of a sedative that she was allergic to and she stopped breathing. The nurse called CODE BLUE! we nearly lost it! We were so scared for Arianna. For the next MRI that was done, they decided to put her under anesthesia, put a tube down her throat and she did very well. Next was a Field Vision Test and a MEG test. These consisted of putting the electrodes back on her head while she sat and went through tests. Arianna is such a brave little girl. We don’t know if we could have been able to complete some of the tests that she completed. When all of these tests were going on, we cut her hair because the glue was getting very hard to get out.

On August 10, 2007, Arianna went through a right temporal lobe lobectomy. This was done at Wake Forrest. Her skull was opened up and electrodes were put inside her head. The hospital staff recorded her seizures at this time. On August 15, 2007, the Dr’s opened up her head again and removed the part of her brain that was causing her seizures. She suffered complications from the surgery and lost control of her entire left side. She could not sit up, walk, or really do much of anything. Her main blood vessel was stretched and knotted up from surgery.  She stayed in the hospital for 18 days and left in a wheel chair. Now she almost has use of her entire left side. Arianna is in intense therapy to regain use of her left arm.

She finally went back to school on September 24, 2007 and she was scared at first but everyone welcomed her back with lots of hugs!

we hope and pray that she is back to 100% soon. It’s been a hard journey on our family with 1/2 the income coming in. Arianna has a little sister and a little brother. Any help that is offered will be greatly appreciated.