{"id":19644,"date":"2018-01-24T17:33:33","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T22:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19644"},"modified":"2018-02-01T12:12:07","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T17:12:07","slug":"be-your-childs-advocate-in-health-care-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/be-your-childs-advocate-in-health-care-mom\/","title":{"rendered":"Be your child\u2019s advocate in health care: mom"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir
\n<\/strong>
\nLaura Schaffer was visiting a cottage along the French River when, in that relatively remote Ontario community, her son\u2019s face froze.
\nShe and her husband had no idea what was happening to their son, Erik Ront.
\nAfter calling an ambulance, the young buy was taken to hospital in Sudbury. A three day stint in the hospital was ultimately the start of a painful three year journey for the Aurora family as they began navigating through the complex world of epilepsy.
\n\u201cBecause we were in an isolated hospital, they were able to do an MRI on Erik which they wouldn\u2019t be able to do as quick here and they ruled out lesions, tumours, infections, and there was no underlying reason for him to be having these seizures,\u201d shares Laura.
\nOnce the diagnosis had been reached, trials for medications began in earnest, often affecting Erik\u2019s behaviour. He could sometimes hit, punch and fought like never before and, on one medication, temporarily lost his speech.
\nA novice as a mom to a son with epilepsy, Laura thought these behavioural changes were symptoms of the disorder progressing and not the medication.
\n\u201cIt was really scary,\u201d she says, noting that, as a mom, she went from the comfort of having her child relatively independent to play with his friends and change his clothes, to a world where a seizure could happen at any moment. \u201c10 minutes after he had a seizure, I thought I would be in a safety zone to let him run upstairs and get dressed, but the next thing I know I see a body just fall from the stairs and hit the hardwood floor. That was my realization of when I couldn\u2019t let him go on stairs alone, I couldn\u2019t let him climb on a playground, couldn\u2019t sit on a swing by himself. It was like having an infant again in a five year old child who just wants to run and be active. You have to limit your child but then you hear all the doctors saying, \u2018Just let him live a normal life.\u2019 It\u2019s easier said than done.\u201d
\nAs much as Erik might have missed being able to do the simple tasks on his own, his mother too was feeling more alone than ever, not knowing where to turn. But she eventually made a connection with Epilepsy York Region, the community organization which serves as a resource to parents and families navigating these waters every single day.
\nMs. Schaffer is sharing their story to raise awareness not only for the organization, but also for their upcoming fundraiser at Tuesday, February 13 when Wimpy\u2019s Diner at Yonge and Golf Links will be flipping one dollar pancakes to mark Shrove Tuesday and raise funds for the organization.
\n\u201cI have been a member since September 2016 when Erik started Grade 1,\u201d says Laura, adding around this time she received a call from Erik\u2019s teacher suspecting he had had a seizure, but not fully aware of the signs. \u201cI realised they are not really educated on what a seizure looks like. I contacted Epilepsy York Region and said I needed their help; they came into the school, met with the teacher and the class. They basically empower people and, since then, I have been active helping out as much as I can.\u201d
\nEmpowerment, however, was not a feeling out of reach for Laura early on in Erik\u2019s journey, however.
\nAfter a referral from her Stouffville neurologist, Dr. Pamela Cooper, in 2015, Erik entered the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at SickKids Hospital for five days of tests. Over that time, they found in a 24 hour period he had no less than 21 seizures \u2013 and was told the tests were complete and to go home.
\n\u201cWhat do you mean I can go home,\u201d says Laura of her response to the team. \u201cI have a kid on one medication that isn\u2019t working, he\u2019s not himself and you want me to go home and just live a normal life? I couldn\u2019t go home. We needed to be there and have more tests. I knew I was going to be back there one day, so why don\u2019t we start doing this now so we don\u2019t have to come back? They agreed and kept us there a few more days, started a new medication as well.\u201d
\nEventually, after further tests and referrals, they hit upon a perfect formula of medication that has, despite continued abnormal activity in his brain, kept Erik seizure free for nearly two years so far.
\n\u201cYou have to really advocate for your children in the sense of knowing your child,\u201d says Laura. \u201cErik is maybe 90 per cent himself, which I will take given how he was at one point, but he has grown up over the last two years. Just because your doctor says go home, you\u2019re done, it doesn\u2019t mean it is the end of the line for you and I really want people to learn that.
\n\u201cI know you feel alone and you\u2019re the only family that is going through this, but seek help, ask your doctor, ask your school if there are any other families within your schools because there is so much help out there but unless you look for it you can\u2019t find it. It will not come to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Laura Schaffer was visiting a cottage along the French River when, in that relatively remote Ontario community, her son\u2019s face froze. She and her husband had no idea what was happening to their son, Erik Ront. After calling an ambulance, the young buy was taken to hospital in Sudbury. A three day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018-01-25-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-56Q","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 05:08:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}