Sophia and the Neurologist

About a month ago (I think July 24th, to be exact), I decided I needed to bring Sophia in to see the pediatrician to get checked out.  Actually, let me backtrack a little.  Sophia has pretty much always, at least since she was about a year old, been very fidgety in her high chair or car seat (or in the cart at the grocery store)....she can't ever seem to just sit still, and she constantly is moving her legs or squirming around.  After a while, it seemed like she was kinda just aggravated by anything between her legs and would strain or rub against it.  We never really seemed to think anything of it.  However, this particular week in July, I started to notice that she would straighten her legs and seem to strain and rock a little bit....even with nothing between her legs.  Michael and I both thought it was weird....but we really sort of got freaked out when one night we had her on the changing table and she totally stiffened up...her toes were pointed way down (after taking ballet classes when I was younger I could still never point my toes that much) and her legs were so stiff, it felt like her muscles were kinda like stone, and her arm was bent up and shaking a bit too.  NOT like what we usually observed.  And she would be standing and just start doing the same...and kind of zone out while she was doing it.  I thought maybe she had a really bad rash or infection or something that I couldn't see or had missed....which was why I chose to bring her into the pediatrician.  I have no problem being the mom that takes their child in and it ends up being nothing at all.  If the doctor and nurses laugh at me after I leave for being a hypochondriac on behalf of my daughter, so be it.  There just seems to be so many weird and strange sicknesses, some even life-threatening, that kids can be afflicted with, I don't want to take any chances (and I may possibly read too many blogs about the random thing that has happened to someones child...makes me sad and just a tad paranoid) with my daughter. 
Anyway, the doctor looked Sophia over very carefully.  She said she did not have a rash or any type of infection.  I was able to show her a short video of Sophia and what she was doing....and the doctor admitted it seemed a bit weird.  She offered me one scenario....that maybe it was something that felt good to Sophia and that was why she was doing it.  She said sometimes little girls will strain or even grind against something between their legs because it will feel good to them....they will do it for a while and then just stop doing it altogether.  I was thinking that didn't sound terrible....but the doctor went on to say that she was a little concerned with the arm stiffening and shaking that was going along with it.  She said that sometimes kids can have little seizures and still remain conscious...and so she wanted to just be safe rather than sorry and have me take Sophia to a pediatric neurologist.  Given my own experiences with neurologists (I swear, I hear that word and all I think is MRI...ugh) I started to feel a little upset and nervous and anxious.  The pediatrician said that they would most likely want to do an EEG on Sophia to determine what was going on.  I almost gagged when I asked, but I did ask if they would have to do an MRI....I explained that it was what they made me do at the neurologist....I can't imagine that for my child (even though I know they will put her to sleep for it, there would just be no other way).  She said she didn't think so, unless they found some reason to....but she was quick to say that she felt like Sophia was a normal little girl and that this was all just precautionary, just to be sure we weren't missing anything.  I appreciated that she didn't just dismiss me and send me on my way for being a crazy first time mother.  I was surprised to see that on her list of recommended pediatric neurologists, was the neurologist that I saw.  I could never imagine him treating children.  So, needless to say, I went with the other doc, haha. 
When I called to make my appointment, they couldn't get Sophia in until mid-August.  I called back to the pediatricians office to ask if that was ok....the doctor had mentioned that they would probably see her pretty quickly, like that week.  My sister said that if it was more urgent, they probably would've made an appointment earlier for Sophia.  I hadn't thought of that, so I started to relax a bit.  But then I got a call from the pediatricians office that our appointment was the very next day...and I got a little nervous all over again. 
At the appointment, they very thoroughly looked over Sophia and asked us a LOT of questions.  We met with not one, but two different doctors.  (both of whom had better personalities than my previous encounter with a neurologist!)  Ultimately they decided that we would need to come back for an 8 hour long EEG, in the office.  Eight entire hours in one of their exam rooms while Sophia would be videotaped and monitored.  Sounded like....fun?  They basically said the same as the pediatrician had said, except that they seemed a little more optimistic that nothing terrible would show up in the EEG....but that if anything suspicious did, they would probably then have to do an MRI to further investigate.  Ugh. 
And so, August 1st, we headed back to the neuro for a looong day.  At first it was just Sophia and me (Michael was planning to come stay with us around lunch time).  They had to hook her head up to all these wires....very similar to when she had her sleep study at 9 months.  But this time, she was the BEST girl.  The nurse who was hooking her up knew about some of the shows that Sophia likes (Super Why, Bubble Guppies) and I sort of laid next to and cuddled Sophia while the nurse hooked her up.  She didn't cry at all and only whined a couple times that she wanted to go home.  Then the nurse wrapped up her head and hooked her up to the computer....which was monitoring her brain waves (I think) and also the video camera was on us the whole time.  I had to push this button (kinda like at the hospital when you have an IV drip and can push the button for more medicine....it looked like that) every time Sophia would stiffen up and then write the time on a log and a brief description of what she would do.
All set up and ready to play!

After an hour or so, we set up her sleeping bag on the floor and started to color (I had brought tons of toys and snacks for the day).  Then I noticed a little line of ants on the floor.  Gross.  I let the first person I saw know that we had an ant brigade in the room and then Sophia and I had to sit on a chair for about an hour and a half before someone came in to tell us they were going to spray and we would have to leave the room for a bit.  Try and keep an active toddler in your lap for that long!  I couldn't believe how good Soph was being, but she was getting pretty tired at that point.  They unhooked her and we had to go out in the hall for about half an hour. 
Here she is taking a little yogurt raisin snack break out in the lobby of the building....



Daddy showed up shortly after this to hang out with us.  We went back into the office to get hooked back up and play a little more and eat some lunch.  Michael was able to stay for an hour and a half or so and then he had to go back to work.  Sophia was sooo tired at this point (maybe it was close to 2)...I held her in the chair and rocked her and sang to her until she finally fell asleep.  I ended up falling asleep for about a half an hour too....Soph slept for about an hour total....my neck and back were killing me from slumping in the chair to make it more comfortable for her...and neither of us really got enough of a nap.  Once she woke up we played a little more.  Had some more snacks.  I took some pictures of her....the nurse had called her bandages her "princess hat" and all the wires that came out from behind were her "rapunzel braid".  :-)  Sophia liked that a lot...she loves "Punzel"!!  And of course anything princesses. 

She was still such a happy girl even though she was all wrapped up and tethered to the computer.  When five o'clock finally rolled around, we were SO ready to go home.  Two nurses came in and it took a good half an hour to get Sophia unhooked.  She was a good girl for that too, only crying when they had to pull some tape with one of the electrodes off her back....poor thing, it must've really hurt.  She was SUCH a trooper the whole day.  As of now, we haven't heard what the results of the test are.  They did tell us it would take a long time to go through eight hours of video plus the monitoring that was going on...matching it with what I wrote and when I clicked the button.  It just seems like so much time has passed and still we haven't heard what could be the issue.  I am hoping and praying that it will be nothing out of the ordinary.  And while it was definitely a very long day for both Soph and I, it was not a traumatic day for her....just like her sleep study, she won't be negatively affected by it at all and after a while, won't even remember it (she probably already forgot about it).  Now to just wait on the results....post to come for sure.  Please keep my girl in your thoughts!