Healing is an interesting thing. Aaron is doing really good! What's interesting is that there seems to be a sort of cycle that his body is in where healing is concerned. He seems to go in spurts where he has great energy levels and feels great. Then he has a day where he hits the wall. Today is one of those days. Nothing frightening by any means, but I think he's going through another healing phase. He'll get to late afternoon and then he just crashes. He'll sleep for a few hours and then just kind of lay around the rest of the day/night. It's barely been a month and a half so he's got a ways to go, but all in all I think he's doing quite well!

Tuesday he had another seizure -- after showering again. It was exactly two weeks after the last one -- same scenario! He gets a little discouraged but all in all handles it well. He's still going to therapy twice a week and has made some progress. Of course, it's not nearly fast enough for him! We aren't seeing a lot of new sensation and movement of his right hand/arm. Hopefully it's just a plateau before the next big leap! I know that's what Aaron is hoping for. We have discussed the possibility that the additional weakness may turn out to be more permanent -- especially since that is something the doctors all said was a possibility. Aaron doesn't like that thought much, but he is very strong and determined, and if there is a way to regain what's not there now, he will do it!!

Back on the seizures after showering topic. I have been doing a lot of research on the subject, and believe it or not, there's quite a bit out there on the worldwide web! I have found a considerable amount of info coming out of countries such as Brazil, India and Australia. I even came across a term for it: bathing epilepsy. Go figure. A study out of Brazil looked at 3 particular subjects, all of which showed the same "symptom", which was seizures after showering/bathing. The hypothesis all along has been that it's the temperature (hot to warm) of the water rather than the showering itself -- in fact that's what Aaron's neurologist attributed Aaron's pattern to. What the Brazilian study concluded was that in some subjects water temperature was the cause and in one, it was just the water itself or the "complex tactile stimuli". Yeah I know, too much information. But I find all of this so fascinating! Anyway, bottom line is, limiting the amount of time that the water is hitting directly on the head as well as on large areas of the body seems to decrease the chance of having a seizure! And of course water temperature plays a role too. Here's another fancy term for you -- "water reflex epilepsy".

What I want to know is how come it took us so long to finally put 2 and 2 together on this??? We know that getting overheated is a trigger for Aaron, as is not getting enough sleep and illness. But showering?!?!? Needless to say, Aaron is going to be a guinea pig for a while. Can't wait to see his neurologist in June!