Neurologist Visit

Layth was very excited about spending the afternoon with his dad at work today while Maya and I took Rayan to visit the neurologist. Everything was going well and just as I expected. The EEG he had last week was normal, the doctor saw no signs of seizures or visual disturbances, and said that the delayed speech could either resolve itself with a sudden burst of vocabulary in 6-12 months, or it could be a longer struggle that would require a lot of speech therapy. In either case, there wasn't much to worry about. He had asked if there were any birthmarks and after a moment of thought, I said there were not. When he noticed the birthmark on his back just as we were about to leave, therefore, I felt like I had been caught in a lie. After having six children, one tends to forget little things like that! He has a little patch of hypomelanotic skin on his back, that is, skin with little or no pigmentation that is obviously lighter than the surrounding skin. As it turns out, the combination of hypomelanotic skin patches and delayed speech are a warning sign of possible tuberous sclerosis. Just as we were about to walk out home-free, we were told we would need an MRI to rule this out. If you've never had an MRI, they are very loud and annoying and seem to take forever. I asked how they handled little ones for this, and was told he'd have to be sedated through an IV. So now I'm fretting about poor little Rayan having to have a painful IV and hoping he doesn't have a bad reaction to the sedation. Most of you know that I try not to let myself get worked up over things or spend too much time worrying about things, so I'm trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach and stop dwelling on this until I have to actually go in for the appointment on May 2.