Hope

  

  The other day our 14 year old daughter and I went to see her paediatric neurologist to discuss the results of her MRI. Her doctor is a spunky lady with a beautiful Irish accent, a good sense of humour and a no-nonsense approach. I like her. Anyway, she took our daughter in first so that they could talk together "sans Mama" and then my daughter came and got me. On the way down the hallway my daughter told me that she had seen her brain on the MRI---"her beautiful, wonderful brain". The good news waiting for us on the other side of the door was that her MRI showed that her brain had no scars, no lesions, no tumours. It was absolutely normal! In the doctor's opinion it also meant that there was a chance that our daughter could grow out of her seizures. For the first time in many years, I felt more than hopeful about my daughter's life with seizures. She will always be "differently-abled" or learning disabled, if you prefer that term. But the fact that there is a chance, even a tiny shred of a possibility that this might not be a lifetime diagnosis feels remarkable to me.
    We don't know what came first, the epilepsy or the learning disorder but either way, all our daughter has ever wanted is to be like other kids; to babysit and learn to drive, to stay home and look after herself sometimes, to graduate from high school and eventually have a boyfriend. Many of those things seemed impossible with epilepsy in her life. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a life for her, without seizures and whether it is because they are being managed with medication or she outgrows them completely, only time will tell. Right now we are 5 weeks seizure free and anything seems possible.