the EEG

Before Isaiah Jane went in for her EEG & MRI, I did my best to find some personal stories – both in real life and online. Thanks to a few friends and a few bloggers, I was able to mentally prepare myself for both tests. And now it’s my turn to share.

I scheduled both tests for one day. Looking back, I can see now that this was a horrible idea. But I haven’t done this before, and I figured it’d be nice to knock it all at one time.

I put Isaiah Jane in one of my old dresses for her big day out on the town. I’d like her to look her sweetest each time we visit a doctor. Sometime before eleven, we checked in at the neurologist’s office and waited in the pediatric area. There was a young couple sitting nearby with a month-old baby. She was cute and chubby and had a lot of hair. After what felt like forever, we were taken upstairs by the tech who would perform the test. I had only nursed IJ once that morning and was hoping to hold her off for her MRI test later that day.

The tech had me sit on a bed covered by paper, with Isaiah in my lap. She chatted with us a bit as she worked attaching electrodes to Isaiah Jane’s head. Eventually, IJ grew bored and fussy. I quickly realized we had not brought anything to entertain her. Chris played “How He Loves” on his phone and handed it to her. It worked.

The song was on repeat, and our spunky tech couldn’t help herself. She said, “These days, it’s just the same thing over and over and over and over. Back in my day, music used to tell a story.” Chris and I just smiled to ourselves. This song was telling IJ quite a story, and she knew it.

The tech tapped away at the computer, noting what Isaiah Jane was doing during different portions of the test. It ran for about twenty minutes. At the end, she put a flashing light in front of Isaiah Jane’s face for a minute or so. IJ handled the whole thing beautifully. The set-up took much longer than the actual test. All in all, we were in that room for about an hour. The tech didn’t read anything off for us immediately. We’ll follow up in a few weeks with the neurologist, and no news before then is good news.