Full Medical Update :)

We left on Sunday afternoon to head up to Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco; we hit up the San Francisco Zoo and walked around enjoying the AMAZING sites for several hours. You could actually reach out and touch many of the animals if they dared get close enough to you or you them, and other's were kept in large reserves where they could run and wonder in an almost natural setting. Of the entire zoo's I've been to this was by far my favorite! We are going to the San Diego Zoo in a few weeks. I can't wait.

Okay now to the update you tuned in for....

At 9am Josh had his second EEG, which yielded the same results as the previous one. Which was basically NOTHING. According to the Doctor we spoke with this morning "An E.E.G. is much like fishing, if you go fishing and don't catch anything you cannot assume then that there is no fish" apparently an E.E.G. will only show epilepsy is you have seizure like tendencies while in the E.E.G.

The conclusion?

In a sum she said we have 3 options.

1- She [the doctor] prescribed an anti seizure medication and said for Josh to dose himself up on it. She said if the day dreaming and possible seizures (silent) stop. Then we assume its epilepsy and he continues to take the medication for the rest of his life. He could possibly drive again if no more seizures are reported for at least 6 months (or depending on Utah law 2 years).

2- We send him to San Antonio for a month long E.E.G. study where they could connect electrode to his head and he wears a computer for a month while going about limited daily activities. To see if they can find evidence of epilepsy.

3- We do nothing, which carries its own risks. She said that if it is epilepsy and he is indeed been miss-diagnosed with A.D.D. the seizures will eventually cause permanent damage to his brain that could lead to permanent memory loss or sudden epileptic death. (Which they believe is when your brain accidently tells your heart to shut down during a seizure).

So those are our current choices. The doctor highly recommended taking the medication and following up in a month to see if there is improvement. If Josh does not want the medication then we are going to make a log of any space(y) times he has or anytime he starts to day dream.

Keep in mind here the medications they can prescribe have a high amount of side effects. Including memory loss, inability to concentrate, depression (about half the people who take these meds end up on depression medications or in some sort of rehab), extreme mood swings, bi-polar disorder, violent tendencies, lack of appetite (some), or sever weight gain (others), numbness in the extremities (to and extreme of severe burns and injuries, dizziness, tiredness, and in some cases death due to allergic reaction (which they did a short survey to make sure he wasn't at risk for).

The other news we got was that this doctor has put into motion a medical bored. She said to not expect to be medically discharged but they will DNIF Josh's flight status (translation: he will never be allowed to fly again). There are still many jobs he SHOULD be able to do in the Air Force so there's a chance he will either become a ground linguist or go back to his old job in Maintenance. IF he goes back to maintenance we are considering going back active duty until he retires.

Well that was ridiculously long but in short: until proved otherwise the diagnosis is Seizures (epilepsy, which is defined as a tendency to have seizures), and we are looking at anywhere from a 1 year to a 4 year wait for the medical board to come back with a decision.