Jake has been doing so much better the past two days. Yesterday he was still a bit wobbly, but today he is pretty much back to normal. We went to see Dr. Chandler yesterday, and she really believes Jake did have a reaction to the chicken pox vaccine. She has tentatively diagnosed him with cerebellar ataxia. She hasn't seen this since around 1993 because the chicken pox vaccine became readily available in 1995, and she sees very few children with chicken pox now. In the early 90s she said she saw several patients with cerebellar ataxia from the actual chicken pox; she had just never seen a patient have a reaction to the vaccine. If Jake had the actual chicken pox, the effects of this would have been much stronger and longer lasting, but since he only had a small "dose" of the chicken pox from the vaccine, the ataxia did not last as long.
In layman's terms, basically what happens is the part of the brain that controls the equilibrium is attacked by the chicken pox virus and swells. It can last for several days, but since Jake only had the vaccine, it only lasted about 24 hours. It apparently has no lasting effects...it just scares parents to death :) Dr. Chandler does want us to follow up with a pediatric neurologist to verify what she and Dr. Bailey have said. We have a tentative appointment with a Dr. Butler for the first week in July, but Dr. Chandler is going to try to get that moved up for us. So, that is about it for now. My mom says this just proves that Jake is definitely not an ordinary child--he must have a flair for the dramatic, and he is quite extraordinary!
I'm hoping for a boring, mundane rest of the week!
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