Couple was attacked, leaving woman having seizures

A homeless woman and her fiance were attacked and robbed late Friday, leaving the woman bleeding from the mouth and having seizures, a Lorain police report said.

Police said they found the woman about 8:45 p.m. lying unconscious on the side of East 29th Street. Her fiance, who was not wearing pants, ran toward the Haven Center on East 30th Street, where both live, the report said.

When the woman woke up, she was sobbing and claimed she couldn’t move on her own, the report said.

The woman told police she had walked to a pharmacy to fill a prescription when two men jumped her and her fiance.

The man later told police he had just cashed a check for $544 when the robbers jumped them, according to the report. He said he recognized them as the same men who robbed him last week.
The report said the man had a head wound but refused treatment.

The woman, who is epileptic, suffered from several seizures while being helped to an ambulance. She was taken to Community Regional Medical Center.

Toddler's brain surgery to relieve him from seizures has promising results

One month after Aiden Waters underwent radical surgery to remove the damaged right hemisphere of his brain, the 4-year-old Azusa boy is already back in the routine of school and undergoing neurocognitive therapy.

"He, for the most part, came out the same boy that went into surgery," said his mother Rachel Waters. "We are so blessed."

Aiden underwent the hemispherectomy to put an end to seizures caused by a rare neurological disorder called Sturge-Weber Syndrome. Prior to his Aug. 21 brain surgery, he had already undergone an operation for glaucoma and 15 laser treatments to fade a deep purple port-wine stain that covered parts of his face.

Facial port-wine stains and glaucoma are common characteristics among individuals with the disorder, according to the Sturge-Weber Foundation. The stain is caused by an overabundance of blood vessels around the trigeminal nerve in the face, and abnormal blood vessels also form on the surface of the brain on the same side.

"Progressively, those blood vessels change and calcify," said Dr. Raman Sankar, head of pediatric neurology at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA, where Aiden's surgery took place. "That whole side of the brain ends up shuttering up."

The disconnection and removal of the damaged hemisphere will allow the left side of Aiden's brain to function better, he said, and should significantly reduce or eliminate the occurrence of seizures.
And although doctors said it's still very early in the recovery process, Waters said Aiden has not had any seizures in the weeks following his surgery.

"The electrical activity produced by seizures is like disruptive noise," Sankar said. "The good half of your brain is trying to listen to Bach or Mozart or Bob Dylan, but the other side is giving you a loud hum or noise."

Now that Aiden is hopefully free from seizures, doctors and therapists have begun to work on developing his neurological processes.

In his classroom at the East San Gabriel Valley School in Covina, teachers engage him in sensory, physical and occupational therapy. Colorful toys that record and repeat his teacher's voice saying "Aiden" help him learn to recognize and respond to his name. He also practices bearing down on his left hand to keep the muscles from atrophying.

Outside the school, Aiden works with a feeding therapist to learn how to chew and swallow different textures.

With the surgery over, Waters said she feels a great sense of relief, but it's also the beginning of many new questions.

"What does the future hold now that he only has half a brain?" Waters said.

Doctors prepared her to expect some behavioral and personality changes in Aiden following the surgery, and she monitors him closely.

Where he once loved to be tickled, Aiden now dislikes the sensation and can become agitated by it, Waters said. At school, his teachers have noticed that some of his favorite activities now upset him, like finger painting with shaving cream.

But doctors said it's far too early in the recovery to tell if any of these changes will be lasting.
"We expect it to get better over time," said Dr. Gary W. Mathern, director of the pediatric epilepsy surgery program and pediatric neurosurgery program at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA, who performed Aiden's hemispherectomy. "If he's not quite as interactive as he was pre-surgery, we do expect to see that at least come back to a sort of baseline."

Aiden Waters, 4, of Azusa goes through a sensory therapy session at the East San Gabriel Valley School in Covina on Sept. 16. Aiden underwent radical brain surgery in late August to treat a rare neurological disorder called Sturge-Weber Syndrome. (Watchara Phomicinda / Staff) baseline."
In fact, the doctors at UCLA won't make their first major assessment of Aiden's recovery and brain function until six months after the surgery, Mathern said.

"We're still very much in the recovery phase," he said.

Waters said that while Aiden does occasionally seem more frustrated than before, he also appears to be more aware of his surroundings.

As his brain starts to form new connections that weren't there before, she hopes that Aiden may one day be able to communicate through speech, something he has been unable to do so far.
Overall, Waters said the recovery process is going smoother than she expected.

"I know we're not out of the woods yet," she said, "but I have to keep focusing on all the progress he's made. I'm so thankful that he's come this far."

Brain surgery changes toddler's life in a positive way

Lily looks and acts like most toddlers. The 16-month-old grabs toys, smiles and babbles to her parents.

She loves crowds and basks in attention.

A speech therapist says Lily's speech is appropriate for her age and requires no special work, at least for now. Her vocabulary includes "dada," "no" and "all gone."

But Lily's parents, Lisa and Paul Rossignol, astound people by describing a surgical procedure Lily underwent in April.

Surgeons removed the right half of Lily's brain.

Doctors in Cleveland, Ohio, used the procedure, called a hemispherectomy, to control epileptic seizures that became more frequent and violent over time.

"They call them salaam seizures because it looks like she's bowing," said Lisa Rossignol, Lily's mom. "The body actually jackknifes."

The seizures came on gradually. When Lily was 2 or 3 months old, Lisa noticed that her daughter was lethargic and showed strange, rolling eye movement after a nap.

"I knew that something wasn't right," said Lisa, a 29-year-old advertising professional. "I was just sick about it."
Within weeks, Lily's seizures became more severe. On Nov. 3, Lisa drove her daughter to the emergency room with a series of massive seizures. "She could barely get a breath they were coming so fast," Lisa said. "I was screaming and driving down the highway."

Doctors say Lily suffered a stroke before she was born that left large cysts, or fluid-filled voids, in her brain. The damage led to a condition called infantile spasms, a dangerous type of epilepsy marked by debilitating and life-threatening seizures.

Epileptic seizures are much like electrical storms in the brain that interrupt both brain and body functions. Shortly before her surgery, doctors estimated that Lily experienced some 350 seizures a day, said Paul Rossignol, Lily's father.

"She pretty much was seizing in some form all day long," said Paul, a certified acupuncturist who has remained home much of the past year to care for Lily.

"She didn't babble much," he recalled. She rarely laughed or slept. "Before the surgery, we probably saw her laughing two or three times."

The frequent seizures so weakened Lily that she became susceptible to disease, said Dr. Doug Postels, a pediatric neurologist at Presbyterian Medical Group who diagnosed Lily with infantile spasms. Lily also experienced paralysis on the left side of her body, which is controlled by the right side of the brain.

"She probably would have died," Postels said. "She would have just kept seizing and seizing until she got pneumonia or something like that."

Postels referred the couple to Dr. Bruce Fisch, a University of New Mexico epileptologist.
Fisch said two-thirds of Lily's right hemisphere was damaged and that Lily needed a hemispherectomy.

The couple experienced some panic after leaving Fisch's office but remained focused on the job ahead. "I don't think we knew what we were getting into, really," Lisa said.

Epilepsy is caused by damage to the brain, Fisch said.

Hemispherectomy is one of several types of surgery used to relieve epileptic seizures by removing the source of the damage, he said. It is used in cases where the damage to the brain is widespread.

Lily underwent two operations at the Cleveland Clinic. The first, called a functional hemispherectomy, essentially disconnected the right hemisphere of Lily's brain. The four-hour surgery on April 4 left the brain intact but dysfunctional, Lisa said.

But Lily's seizures continued, prompting doctors to perform a second surgery on April 14. The two-hour surgery, called an anatomical hemispherectomy, physically removed the right half of her brain.
"That ended her seizures," Lily's mother recalled. "She came out of the second surgery smiling and talking."

Lily's personality emerged almost immediately after the second surgery, Paul said. "It really, really was like a miracle."

Because Lily was only 10 months old at the time of her hemispherectomy, she has a good shot at developing normal language and intellectual abilities, Fisch said.

"The younger you are, the more you can recover from any brain injury," said Fisch, who recommended treatment at the Cleveland Clinic.

The brain's ability to rewire itself in response to an injury is called plasticity. In very young people, the remaining half of the brain can take over the functions of both hemispheres, he said.

"It sounds extreme," Fisch said of hemispherectomies. "It is aggressive. It's a very extensive procedure, but, overall, the outcome is wonderful."
Postels said the void left by a hemispherectomy fills with spinal fluid. The remaining half of the brain seems to remain in place, he said.

The chief complication of the procedure is hydrocephalia, or "water on the brain," which typically can be corrected by a shunt, he said.

Postels also said he is optimistic about Lily's physical and intellectual development.

"Lily will probably never be a ballet dancer, but she probably will look pretty dang good in a couple years," he said.

Lily's parents are hopeful but realistic. They recognize that Lily could face problems with intellectual development. But, without the surgery, Lily faced a bleak future, if any. So far, she's doing well.
"Cognitively, she's doing pretty good," Paul said. "Her speech is good. She makes connections with people. She's talking a lot."

Infant suffering from seizures was revived by police officers

A 13-month-old girl is alive thanks to three New York City police officers who helped to revive her after she stopped breathing in her mother's arms. The three officers came to the aid of Anale Fernandez outside the gates of City Hall on Monday when they heard the girl's mother scream for help.

The girl's mom, Anna Reyes, says her girl has a hereditary condition that can lead to seizures. She says her daughter began to go into a fit about 1 p.m. and stopped breathing. Her screams got the attention of two officers at a security gate at City Hall. They managed to revive her with the help of a detective. The girl was treated at the hospital and released to her family.

Souvenir from his last seizure

Florida State junior defensive end Markus White sees the crescent-shaped scar under his left eye as a blessing.

Before a practice early last month, he suffered a seizure — something he has dealt with sporadically since the seventh grade — in the locker room. Apparently, he fell and hit a cabinet. It's just a guess. He only remembers walking toward the cabinets, then nothing … until waking up in an ambulance.

"Every time I look in the mirror, it's like, 'Okay. This is all I got,' " White said, pointing to the scar that's more of a discoloration. "It's kind of like a gift."

He wasn't taking his medication as prescribed.

He now has a vivid reminder of the possible consequences.

"I've got to take that medication if I want to be all I can be," he said.

White, a one-time Rutgers signee out of West Palm Beach Leonard High and transfer from perennial powerhouse Butler (Kan.) Community College, has the look of someone who can be a star.

Although he's still refining his technique and mastering the FSU scheme, the speedy and powerful White enters this weekend's ACC showdown against Wake Forest tied for third on the team with five unassisted tackles and fifth with 11/2 tackles for a loss. And he has not started a game.
"You see him getting a little bit better every day," defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews said. "When he gets (the scheme) down, he's going to be in that class of the guys we had back in the '90s. You can mark that down."

An academic setback

White wasn't highly recruited out of high school for one big reason — his grades; grades that made him ineligible as a sophomore and would later necessitate a higher score on the SAT to meet college admissions.

He visited only Florida Atlantic and Rutgers, signing with the Scarlet Knights but learning before the start of the 2006 season he hadn't qualified. He spent that fall watching Rutgers' football games on television, hiring a tutor to help him prepare to retake the SAT and working at a Hyatt hotel to help pay his bills.

"It was tough on him. It was tough on me," said White's father, Andrew. "He kind of wanted to come home, but he also wanted to stay. He wanted to gut it out."

White didn't get the SAT score he needed, finally left New Jersey and returned home for the Christmas break, which is when he decided he would go to Butler. The junior college had offered him a scholarship and a chance to show folks what he could do on and off the field.

He not only earned his associate degree in a year and a half but was named the national junior college player of the year in 2007. FSU coaches fell in love with his size (6 feet 4, 241 pounds), his linebacker-like burst (4.55 in the 40), his basketball-like hops (a 30-inch vertical leap that he loves to show while dunking in pickup games), his propensity to make big plays (241/2 sacks and six forced fumbles last year) and his passion.

"His motor goes all the time," coach Bobby Bowden said. "He doesn't idle down."

But when he does …

'Freaked everybody out'

White matter-of-factly rattles off the particulars of his first seizure.

"Seventh grade. Science class. I felt like I fell asleep. And I was never a kid to fall asleep in class; not in middle school," he said. "I woke up in the hospital, and that was that."

Doctors and specialists have not been able to pinpoint why his seizures occur.

Dr. Robert Cantu, the chief of neurosurgery service and director of sports medicine at Emerson (Mass.) Hospital and a past president of the American College of Sports Medicine, said about 1 percent of the population suffers seizures and participation in sports isn't usually precluded. White's father has surfed the Internet for answers or even theories of possible causes, light, bad eyesight, anything.

What he has found is numerous athletes, including football players such as former Seminole star Samari Rolle, haven't had seizures threaten their careers. Of course, taking their medicine was critical to control the frequency of seizures.

"I just hated the fact that I had to take medicine at such a young age," said Markus, who admits he "slacked off" at times.

He had another seizure in high school, one while in Kansas then the one in Tallahassee. Although he said he told his new teammates beforehand about his history so they could "look out for me," they were understandably unnerved.

"It freaked everybody out," defensive end Everette Brown said. "But he's doing what he's supposed to do."

White actually returned the next day to practice and said he has had no side effects. And yes, he's conscientiously taking his medicine even as he politely fields questions from other students about the scar.

"It's scary for me," White's father said. "I wish it would go away. I wish it would go away today, this second. It's not happening. I don't want to nag him about taking the medicine. Sometimes you nag and you make it worse. But I think this has been a wake-up call."

"This isn't a joke, and this can be taken away any time," Markus said. "It's motivation."

High School football player fought seizures before losing the battle

The Boron High football team met Wednesday afternoon and decided to honor Vinnie Rodriguez the best way it knows how: by playing on.The Bobcats voted unanimously to proceed with Friday's road game against Lake Isabella Kern Valley after the death of Rodriguez, 16, a sophomore running back and safety who succumbed Tuesday night to head injuries suffered last Friday during a game against California School for the Deaf Riverside.

"The kids want to play for Vinnie," Boron Athletic Director Jim Boghosian said. "That's what he would want."Coach Todd Fink said he at first told his players that he intended to call off the game but was overruled."They kind of sat there in silence for a minute and then one of them said, 'We decided on Saturday when we met originally that for better or worse, we're going to play this game. We made this decision a long time ago,' " Fink said. "A couple more of them spoke up and added to those sentiments, and it gave me enough of a feeling that emotionally we're ready to play.

"We still may have a couple of kids who are not up to it and might not play in this game, and we support those kids fully. It's a tough decision."Boron will hold a spaghetti dinner fundraiser tonight in the school cafeteria to help defray Rodriguez's medical expenses. His grandmother was the guardian for him and his three younger brothers. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Rodriguez had been in critical condition and in intensive care at Loma Linda Medical Center after sustaining the injuries while making a tackle. He appeared to stabilize before taking a turn for the worse Tuesday night.Fink described Rodriguez as a 5-foot-5, 135-pound whirlwind who embodied the spirit of the Bobcats, a small-school team that packs a wallop."I guarantee anyone who's been hit by him is not going to believe he's 5-5, 135," Fink said Tuesday afternoon.

This week, Boron students affixed pink and orange ribbons to a fence at the school forming a heart alongside Rodriguez's jersey number and first initial. Below lay a bouquet of flowers, a candle, an angel figurine and a book of prayers and promises.Fink had asked that football players not be interviewed by the media.Standing near the makeshift memorial Tuesday, student Laynah Fealy, a senior, described Rodriguez as "hyper" and "light-hearted," though there was nothing fluffy about his play."He was one of our best hitters, and he was the smallest guy," Fealy said.

Rodriguez scored two touchdowns during the Bobcats' season-opening 21-18 victory over Rosamond and was elected a weekly captain going into last Friday's game."We've never had a better practice player than him, the way he steps on the field and approaches it," Fink said of his team's second-leading rusher. "Everything he does is 100 miles an hour. We've got to slow him down at times."By all accounts, Rodriguez was injured on what appeared to be a routine play.He made a tackle early in the fourth quarter, then came off the field and sat on the bench.

"He sat next to an assistant coach and all of a sudden he got real wobbly and fell to the ground," Boghosian said.Having sustained an apparent head injury, Rodriguez then suffered the first of several seizures. The ambulance assigned to the game had been dispatched to an accident about 20 miles away, Boghosian said, so an emergency medical technician who was helping to run the down markers came over to give first aid to Rodriguez.

When it became apparent that Rodriguez was gravely injured, officials called the game with about eight minutes remaining. A helicopter landed on the field and transported Rodriguez to the hospital, where he underwent surgery to relieve swelling in his brain.After practice Tuesday, Fink said his players were struggling to deal with the situation.

"I don't think that anybody prepares themselves for something like this or that there's a handbook on how to cope with something like this," he said. "You don't want to see a family member go down at any time, and that's what happened."

ben.bolch@latimes.com

Dog saves owner when he collapsed with seizures

A dog in Scottsdale is credited with saving his owner's life by calling 911.

``Buddy" is an 18-month-old German Shepherd, trained to be an assistant dog.

He dialed 911 using his teeth when his owner, Joe Stalnaker, had a seizure.

On the 911 tape, Buddy is barking and whimpering as the dispatcher, asks, ``Hello? Can you hear me? Do you need police or paramedics?"

911 Operator Chris Trott had never fielded a call like this before, but he dispatched help, which arrived just over two minutes later.

Stalnaker, who has recovered from the seizure, said he trained ``Buddy" to provide peace-of-mind because of seizures that began following an injury in an Army training mission at Fort Bliss, Texas.
``I basically taught him any time I laid down on the floor to bring me the phone," Stalnaker said. ``He will grab the phone and inevitably one of his teeth is going to hit the speed-dial button and call 911."
Stalnaker said the latest seizure, one of his most severe episodes, marks the third time Buddy has called for help.

He said Buddy gives him the ability to be independent.

``If something happens, I know he knows how to get help... Regardless of where I'm at, or if he's with me, I can count on him."