Baby who had 50 seizures a day now seizure-free after surgery at Children's Minnesota

For two parents in St. Paul, Minnesota, the birth of their daughter was supposed to be one of the happiest moments in their lives. But soon after Loralei was born, Nkaujfuah and Jonathan knew something was wrong.

"The seizures progressively got worse," Loralei's mother Nkaujfuah said. "I felt scared. I didn't know what was going on with her. I just knew something was wrong and I just needed to get her help."

Lorelei was having up to 50 seizures a day. Medication wasn't working. 

"Seizures at that young age, especially five weeks of age, can be catastrophic in nature," said Dr. Nitin Agarwal, a pediatric epileptologist at Minnesota Epilepsy Group.

Agarwal and a team of neurosurgeons at Children's Minnesota got together to come up with a plan.

"We all sat down and had a discussion about the things and decided to proceed with this procedure called a hemispherectomy," Agarwal said. 

It's a surgery where the neural pathways between the left and right hemisphere of the brain are separated. Lorelei would be one of the youngest patients to have it done. Something that worried her parents.

"She was just so young," Nkaujfuah said. "I was just really scared of the outcome and the process."

Doctors knew the surgery wasn't going to be easy.

"It's still one of the more challenging surgeries that we as neurosurgeons perform. But in a two-month-old it's even more challenging," Medical Director of Neurosciences at Children's Minnesota Dr. Meysam Kebriaei said.

But the surgery proved to be a success. Lorelei has been seizure-free ever since. And at her three month post-op check in, she was all smiles.

"All the developmental milestones are catching up," Agarwal said. "The family is very pleased, we are very pleased and we are very hopeful that she will have a very good outcome from here."

"She's dealing with normal baby stuff," Kebriaei said. "She's keeping her parents awake at night but not because of seizures."

Lorelei's parents look forward to her living a happy and healthy life. 

"We made it out to the other side," Nkaujfuah said. "It's just amazing seeing her grow and seeing her smile."