{"id":7934,"date":"2020-03-26T14:05:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T03:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=7934"},"modified":"2020-03-26T16:28:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T05:28:27","slug":"doctors-look-inside-sarahs-head-to-solve-seizure-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/doctors-look-inside-sarahs-head-to-solve-seizure-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors look inside Sarah’s head to solve seizure mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Story featured in the Sunday Herald Sun.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Words:\u00a0<\/strong>Alanah Frost<\/p>\n

Photography:\u00a0<\/strong>Alex Coppel<\/p>\n

When little Sarah Miguelez Gallardo is up and going, there\u2019s no stopping her. The 22-month-old toddler is inquisitive. She climbs, she runs and she smiles all the way \u2014 despite the bandage wrapped around her little head.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just shy of her first birthday, Sarah began having seizures, which the family now knows to be infantile spasms. \u201cI could see that she was doing something funny \u2013 every now and then her head would come down and her arms were up,\u201d mum Anay Gallardo said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next time she did it I filmed her \u2026 and we drove down to The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital (RCH).<\/p>\n

\u201cThey forwarded the video to their neurology team and within a few hours we were in a room. It all got a bit scary
\nand overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now almost a year later, and after trialling different drugs, doctors still haven\u2019t completely got to the bottom of Sarah\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n

Last week she was placed under observation for 24 hours, confined to her bed and a square patch of floor barely big enough to stretch her little legs, while she underwent an EEG scan. A surveillance camera was placed on the ceiling to capture any unusual movements. On her back, a miniature backpack filled with cords and wires and monitors mapped her brain activity to find out why her tiny body sometimes convulses in fits. But looking at Sarah, you would barely know she is fighting an internal battle. Her energy is contagious and her smile infectious.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause their brains are still developing at this age, no one really knows how things are going to pan out,\u201d Ms Gallardo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s (about) making sure we keep the seizures under control and doing all the tests to make sure things aren\u2019t getting any worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts been a bit of an adventure. You cherish each little step that she takes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When little Sarah Miguelez Gallardo is up and going, there\u2019s no stopping her. The 22-month-old toddler is inquisitive. She climbs, she runs and she smiles all the way \u2014 despite the bandage wrapped around her little head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":7940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,7198,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-good-friday-appeal","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7934"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7943,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7934\/revisions\/7943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}