MRI at UCLA

Today I took Lyla up to UCLA to have a follow-up brain MRI with spectroscopy (you can look it up online, I don't really know what it means!). It's been about 7 months since we had her last MRI, so it was time to see what her brain looks like now. I don't know why I felt like taking pictures, but Mike was out of town and there are a lot of people interested in Lyla, so I thought I would document a few pictures of the day. Everything went fairly smooth. I had warned the nurses and anesthesiologist that she is a tough stick, most of her iv lines are difficult to place, and they usually have to dig around to find a good one. They were confident that they could find something without having to use more drugs than necessary to calm her down. They used these numbing patches of lidocaine, which apparently work better than the cream form which has never worked in the past. It did work, and she didn't even cry when they put the needle in. I was extremely impressed, the iv has always been the hardest thing for me to watch them do, especially since I am also a difficult stick, and I think it hurts really bad when they dig around! However, once we got to the MRI table, and started the anesthesia, she started screaming because of the burning meds going into her vein. She wouldn't fall asleep, so we realized the access point was not as great as we thought it was. They had to try for another vein, which of course made her cry even harder. They only had to do one more poke to find a good vein, and she finally passed out a few minutes later. An hour later, this is what she looked like... We are meeting with the head of pediatric neurology at UCLA next week, and will discuss the results of the MRI then. I feel some anxiety again with waiting for test results, it's been a while since we have tested her, and fear of the unknown is never fun. We may not know anything more than we already do, but hopefully we will get more direction in the course of her care. I will try and post after we meet with the neurologist next week. Until then, thanks for all the support that we receive from friends and family, it never goes unnoticed or unappreciated!