We spent the day in Southampton hospital yesterday so Patrick could have his special eye tests and so that they could take lots of blood and urine samples from him (poor thing).
We are pleased to be able to report that his eyes are fine. The tests they performed were very complex, they had to attach some probes to Patrick's head and sit him in front of a TV screen showing black and white squares that he had to focus on. Unbelievably Patrick was so tired that he slept through the whole test and the poor assistant had to hold Patrick's eye lids open! It's amazing what technology they have as they were able to tell exactly how Patrick's brain processes what his eyes can see and thankfully he can see really well. They also looked closely at his retina which was more important for diagnosing his condition. They did this by attaching probes just under his eyes and then holding flashing lights in front of him in various colours and speeds. The Dr was really pleased with him and said that she could see nothing wrong with his eyes at all and that they could now rule out several nasty degenerative conditions including Battens disease. The flashing light test also proved that his epilepsy isn't triggered by flashing lights which is handy to know.
After his eye tests we had a consultation with Fiona who explained that they are now going to send off his blood samples and urine to be tested for various other conditions. I did ask what exactly they were looking for and Fiona proceeded to read out a very long list of Metabolic, Genetic and other disorders and left me none the wiser! What I did understand is that the majority of these tests have been done before and had negative results so they are just double checking and there are several things they are testing for that his symptoms don't quite match with so are unlikely to come back positive. There are a group of Genetic tests that haven't been done before so they could show something. We have to wait until the 20th December for the results so we'll let you know if they find anything.
As far as Patrick's seizures go, they're still pretty stable at the moment. He has had a rotten cold and a temperature over the last few days so he's had a couple of big ones but in general he's much better than before and is only having the odd jerk, more of a muscle spasm than a full seizure.
As always I'll let you know if anything changes over the next few weeks, hope everyone is well and looking forward to Christmas as we are.
Take Care, Love Gemma xxx
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