Medical condition that causes seizures

Tamara Moore has not been bashful about sharing her son's story.

When she and son Dallas Hill flew to Phoenix in the summer of 2004 for revolutionary surgery, Southwest Airlines filmed the trip for an episode of the A&E network's television show "Airline."
The surgery, performed at Barrow Neurological Institute, successfully removed a lesion from Dallas' hypothalamus, the area at the base of the brain that regulates things such as body temperature, emotion, sex drive, sleep and appetite.

The condition, known as hypothalamic hamartoma, is extremely rare and causes seizures that usually get worse as a child grows up.

Dallas' odyssey was one of three storylines on an episode of "Airline" that aired in October of 2004. The show followed Dallas from Portland International Airport, into the operating room, and back home to his new life.

"I think having the TV cameras on, it took all the stress off of me," Moore said. "I worried about (being on TV) instead of the important stuff."

Dallas' story ended up on "Airline" because the father of another hypothalamic hamartoma patient is a pilot for Southwest Airlines.

At the time of Dallas' operation, several Portland-Vancouver television stations reported on his condition. The Columbian wrote about Dallas 14 months ago, when he was beginning to learn to skate.

Moore said she's shared their ordeal with the hope that it helps other people facing mysterious medical challenges.

"I just would like other people to know: Don't give up," she said.

"If you're in that situation, you feel so hopeless and lost," she said. "But great things happen."