“Life is nothing short of a blessing!”

Mallory Hansen’s son, Noah, was only three, but he was so debilitated by seizures—as many as 30 a day!—that he couldn’t even go to the playground. There has to be a better way! Mallory cried, willing to try anything. Even a risky brain surgery . . .

Slipping off her three-monthold son’s onesie, Mallory Hansen kissed Noah’s downy head as they waited for the doctor.

For the Durant, Oklahoma, firsttime mom, everything had been perfect since Noah had come along—her pregnancy, and now Noah himself, who was always grinning and even rolled over at three weeks, ahead of schedule.

Just one thing weighed on Mallory’s mind: the way Noah’s head seemed to spasm.

“It’s probably a reflex, like how our bodies sometimes jerk as we’re falling asleep,” the pediatrician had said when she’d mentioned it.

But now, when the doctor came in and saw Noah make that very motion, she swallowed hard. “I think a neurologist should take a look . . . ”

The littlest fighter

Mallory’s heart leapt into her throat as the simple checkup turned into blood work and an EEG and then a devastating diagnosis: Noah was having infantile spasms, a type of seizure.

“Your son has epilepsy,” the specialist determined.

That night, Mallory cried in her husband Craig’s arms. The plan was to start Noah on medication immediately, to keep track of his every seizure and see the neurologist monthly. But in the months that followed, even though babies usually sleep less as they grow older, Noah began sleeping more—as much as 20 hours a day. And even when he was awake, he stopped smiling in the bath and giggling when Mallory danced his stuffed monkey. Worse yet, Noah’s seizures were coming even more frequently. Sometimes, as he crawled around the room, Noah would fall onto his face. And when he learned to walk, Mallory became even more frightened. What if a seizure happened on the playground? What if he tumbled and hit his head . . . ? “He had 30 seizures today!” Mallory worriedly told Craig, who would stay up to watch over Noah as he slept so Mallory could rest; then they’d trade places. Noah himself never complained; he’d never known any other kind of life but one with seizures and doctor appointments and hospital visits. But this is no kind of life for a toddler! Mallory wanted to scream. Even after doctors changed Noah’s medications, seizures continued to bombard him. In fact, by the time he was three, he’d suffered more than 1,600. When they moved to Houston for Craig’s job, Mallory learned they were not far from Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the top five pediatric facilities in the U.S.

“Maybe there’s something they could do to help,” Mallory and Craig hoped.

A miracle for Noah

There, specialists performed a high-resolution MRI and discovered something shocking: Noah had focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) a congential abnormality where the neurons in the right occipital lobe of his brain hadn’t formed properly.

To Mallory, it sounded terrifying. But doctors were optimistic.

“Because that one spot is likely triggering his seizures, we might be able to correct it surgically.”

It sounded almost too good to be true. And it was risky: Noah could lose his vision entirely— or worse.

Still, Mallory and Craig knew they couldn’t let Noah go on living this way.

Curled up beside him in his hospital bed, Mallory held threeyear-old Noah close.

“Doctors are going to try to make you feel better. When you wake up, you’re going to have bandages,” she explained.

Weary as usual, Noah simply nodded.

The surgery was in two parts. The first—placing a grid like a miniature EEG in Noah’s brain to provide more information about the depth of his seizures—took 12 hours. Please, please, let us have done the right thing! Mallory prayed.

For two days, Noah drifted in and out of sleep as neurologists monitored him. Then—in another 12-hour procedure on Mallory and Craig’s anniversary—they performed the resection, removing the area of brain tissue they believed was causing Noah’s seizures. And this time, when Noah awoke, he was smiling. “Mama,” he whispered. Because it could take months for the brain to “rewire” itself, Noah would remain on medication. But as one day passed—then another, and another—noah didn’t have a single seizure. And once they were home, though Mallory watched him like a hawk . . . nothing!

Nothing, that is, but miracles: because suddenly, Noah was chattering. And as he zoomed Matchbox cars and Tonka trucks around the house, he counted, “One, two, three . . . ” and even sang his ABCS!

Though nerve-wracked that the seizures would return, Mallory even brought Noah to the park to dig in the sandbox. And soon, doctors felt safe enough to wean Noah off all medications—and gave Mallory the go-ahead to enroll him in preschool!

Today, sandy-haired Noah just turned five—and remains both medication and seizure-free! He loves books and is learning to read. And every year, they celebrate his “brainiversary.”

“I am brave!” he tells folks, and Mallory and Craig agree.

“We’ve thought of Noah as a fighter since day one. Now he can finally be a normal little boy,” beams Mallory. “Life is nothing short of a blessing!”

You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter think.” than you WINNIE THE POOH, A.A. MILNE