Brianne Zabot
May 5, 1998 - February 22, 2003
Brianne's Leap of Hope

Brianne Paige is our youngest daughter and sister to Kayla. Brianne was born a very healthy baby May 5, 1998. She achieved all baby milestones on time if not early. At eleven months old, one of her arms started to jerk uncontrollably, without any reason as to why this would happen. I took her to a medical clinic, and upon examination it was discovered her leg was also twitching. She was taken to The Alberta Children’s Hospital ER. Many medications were administered in attempts to stop the jerking; various tests were taken to try to find a cause to this seizure like episode that was affecting our healthy little girl. After a two day stay in ICU the jerking stopped and we were sent home, (we were told she may have a partial seizure disorder). She was followed by a hospital neurologist a month later, she seemed to be fine. We were certain this entire nightmare was behind us. Unfortunately, nine months later, symptoms returned but only worse. The jerking had taken on a whole new turn and was now throughout her entire body. Brianne spent a lot of time at the hospital for more testing, to also try to control the jerking (which was called myoclonus) and to find out what was going wrong in Brianne’s little body. February 14, 2000, Brianne's dad found her unconscious in the middle of the night, very close to taking her last breath while having her first tonic-clonic seizure which was brought on by a fever. Five weeks in hospital left our family scared beyond belief, without any further answers to what was wrong. Brianne was now unable to walk or sit unassisted. She was like a floppy little doll as her muscle tone was extremely low.

Brianne sadly began to lose her previously acquired skills and although she would have periods of stabilization, she never was able to regain what she had lost.