6-Year-Old Jessie Hall to Have Half Her Brain Removed
May 14th, 2008 | by admin |
Jessie Hall is 6 years old and she suffers from a rare disease called Rasmussen’s Encephalitis which causes her to suffer constant life threatening seizures and unending twitching. To fix this, doctors from John Hopkins will remove half of her brain.Rasmussen’s is a rare nervous system disorder which causes chronic inflammation of the brain and usually affects border=”0″ />
Vote it up!Jessie HallCourtesy of Jessie’s Blog (Public Domain)Jessie border=”0″ /> Vote it up!Jessie HallCourtesy of Jessie’s Blog (Public Domain)Jessie in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit
Throughout the next couple months, Jessie had seizures or partial seizures and her parents kept their logs of times, dates and all pertinent information for the doctors.
Jessie had developed a 24 hour twitch and had lost some use of her left arm and hand, so the parents decided it was time to get a second opinion from another hospital and another doctor.
On December 10, 2007, the took Jessie to see Dr. Steven Lender at Medical City Dallas, who observed the twitching of Jessie’s fingers and hand as well as the loss of dexterity in that hand, asking if the treating doctor had seen that, to which the parents said no because they hadn’t had an appointment in a while. He encouraged the parents to get her in to see her original doctor immediately because he suspected Encephalitis, which is inflammation of the brain.
Two days later Jessie was back in the hospital, hooked up to machines and she was diagnosed with Focal Encephalitis in the Right Occipital Lobe and Jessie was put border=”0″ /> Vote it up!Jessie Hall’s SendoffCourtesy of Jessie’s Blog (Public Domain)Mayor Kit Marshall Declared the Day as “Jessie’s Day” and gave her a parade as a send off for her trip to prepare for her surgery.
The public response to the family was more than they expected. Jessie received a letter from the Make-a-wish Foundation, granting her any wish that she wants, A fund was set up to help the family with the costs that would be associated, Midwest Airlines wrote to the family offering to take care of the air travel needs between Dallas Fort Worth and Baltimore for Jessie’s surgery, Jessie’s school principal declared Friday, April 4th as “Jessie’s Day” at school, the media highlighted Jessie’s situation, the family had an amazing trip to Give Kids the World, and Cracker Barrel sponsored Jessie’s Carnival, details about the carnival here.
Jessie also celebrated her 6th birthday on March 8, 2008.
The mayor of their town, Kit Marshall, declared May 10, 2008, “Jessie’s Day” and they send her off to Baltimore in style with everything pink because that is Jessie’s favorite color and the dallas cowboys cheerleaders showered her with attention, and she was the Grand Marshall in a giant pink parade.
Jessie Hall’s surgery has been scheduled at John Hopkins Children’s Center for June 11, 2008.
The family is now in Baltimore at the Children’s House which is special housing for the parents of children with life-threatening illnesses that are being treated at Johns Hopkins.
The parents keep Jessie’s blog updated for friends, family and everyone that has shown such caring and interest in Jessie’s story, so if you want to leave the family a little note of encouragement, the comment section is open.
More on Rasmussen’s Encephalitis can be found here.
More on the Hemispherectomy procedure can be found here.
Stumble it!
