Leo Clement

The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve. It contains motor and sensory fibers and, because it passes through the neck and thorax to the abdomen, has the widest distribution in the body. It contains somatic and visceral afferent fibers, as well as general and special visceral efferent fibers.  Vagus means “wandering” in Latin, and true to its name, the nerve meanders around the chest and abdomen, connecting most of the key organs—heart and lungs included—to the brain stem. It’s like a back door built into the human physiology, allowing you to hack the body’s systems. Vagus nerve stimulation, or VNS, got its start in the 1990s, when Cyberonics, of Houston, developed an implanted stimulator to treat particularly tough cases of epilepsy. That application was just the beginning. Researchers soon found that stimulation had the potential to treat a variety of ailments, including painful neurological conditions such as migraine headaches and fibromyalgia, inflammatory p...

These cheesy "awareness" pics I pirated off the internet just because. Most of you are aware (ha ha) of Leo's tribulation with seizures, though I've probably blogged more about MY tribulations with them. At any rate, you all know that seizures have taken hold of our little lion man at four months old. They started out fairly mild, and only I could tell when they were happening. He got put on one of the milder medications commonly used for seizures and for awhile we lived without thinking too much about it, because at the time we kinda had bigger fish to fry (like plastic reconstructive surgery etc) and anyway the medicine worked. Then came that icy wintery night that introduced us to the real world of seizures. A sixth sense woke me up in the middle of the night to the sight of my baby in the throws of a seizure the likes of which I have never seen before. And it didn't stop. After a sliding down our icy drive in the ambulance, it still wasn't s...

Leo's all hands these days. Leo's always got a hand reaching out for me. Always.  Even back when he was just a wee lion cub he was all claws. And um.. .Head . But really we mostly focused on his hands. For obvious reasons. Talking with his hands at only a few hours old... At almost a year old.. And so on... Regardless of the day, time, or his or mine emotional state, awake or completely sound asleep, he's reaching out to take my hand. Seriously, his hands are always there... Because of his delayed communication skills he's perfected the language of hands. And I don't mean Sign Language either, which Leo has had down pat for years, this is Leo's personal Hand Speak Dictionary. His High Five is exemplary. He almost never misses. The Boss hand (grabbing my hand to make it do things for him like push buttons, pick up food, turn on the bath, or really anything he doesn't feel like doing himself). The Baby Hair hand...

I may drop a lot of things off by the wayside, but I hope and usually assume that I'm not the only mom who does that. Unfortunately, I seem to have way too many talented friends who seem to juggle children, cookies, home baked dinners, husbands, and kodak family quality moments with truly enviable ease and negate my assumptions of solidarity in mom-failing. Case in point: our family Christmas photo card. Big fail there guys. As in, never really happened kind of fail. Anywho, I comfort myself that in the big and beautiful scheme of life, it's not really a big deal if the Christmas card doesn't happen. At least I fed my kids dinner right?  I also comfort myself with the fact that there are turbo-moms and than there are so-so moms, and also there are mamas and the real popular Ma! moms and in reality, if Christmas cards happen or not happen doesn't automatically put you in the so-so category or the Ma! category; in fact, it really doesn't affect the scales at al...

There is something about this time of year with all the feasting and fairy lights and cozy fire places that challenges all the bad things in the world to kick it up a notch or two. Ever notice that? On one street corner they are serenading those merry gentlemen and the next street over in a dark and sad corner someone's heart is being broken.  How terrible, I think to myself, as yet another tragedy comes to my notice, that it all happens now, during that "most wonderful time of the year." What irony! Can't evil take the holiday off like the rest of us? I remember that dark Christmas we spent in the hospital with Leo two years ago now, indeed I couldn't forget it even if I tried since Facebook has this nifty new feature which shows you old postings again and again. Honestly, this feature I could live without just fine. Don't they realize that some memories, like that ancient jar of something you can't ever remember to throw out, are best left in ...

No snow in Vermont yet, but some pretty frosty mornings! So we've been spending some time at home lately...a lot of time actually... So much time in fact that in my mind, it's what hibernation would probably feel like, just without the actual sleeping part. Leo's been having a rough couple of months, and I never know which way the day will go, so that makes planning outings ahead of time kind of a non-issue.  Ever since the return of the seizure monster the Lion Boy has just been "off."  Phrases such as "off" or "just not himself," are phrases that doctors in general abhor hearing. Mostly because they require some kind of diagnostic response, but give no usable information to help with that... But woe to a doctor who ignores these phrases because as everyone knows there is nothing more accurate than a mother's instinct about her child's health. And consequently a mother's wrath if she thinks her worries are being igno...

Shoes are good right? Shoes go on feet so that feet can do their thing; like walking, or running, jumping, and heck, even dancing. Nika asked me the other day (she's very into the who did what questions lately) who was it exactly who invented shoes? She elucidated that in her bible book Noah is wearing sandals, but Adam and Eve aren't, so one can assume that somewhere between the snake and the boat someone invented shoes. I can only think that like everything that was lost in the fall from Eden, so was lost our impervious and hobbit-tough feet. Hence the need for shoes.  I love shoes, don't get me wrong- I'm female after all -but today I had a pretty singular shoe shopping experience that wasn't one to raise my dopamine levels. Leo got his AFO's yesterday. And man, there is nothing cut loose about them. But the idea here is that they will help shape his ankles back into alignment, because right now he's got some pretty big ...