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SAINT-HYACINTHE | A girl from the Montérégie who suffered up to 100 epileptic seizures a day at the age of 3 is virtually free of her illness thanks to a miracle operation.
Chloé Jacques is celebrating the 10th anniversary of her recovery today. The girl had her first epileptic seizures at 16 months old. His small absences quickly turned into complete seizures, that is to say a loss of consciousness followed by contractions and muscle twitches.
Chloe Jacques took up to seven medications a day to control her illness, caused by a malformation of her brain. Sometimes the medicated badtail provided periods of lull, but the respite was short-lived.
Around the age of 3, she was the victim of repeated epileptic seizures, even threatening her safety.
Photo courtesy
The 3-year-old girl during her hospitalization at Sainte-Justine Hospital, in 2009.
"It's gone crazy," exclaims his mother, Isabelle Farand, in an interview with The newspaper in his home in Saint-Hyacinthe.
The girl could crumble anywhere, anytime. She split her forehead a few times on furniture, to the point of having to go to the hospital by ambulance.
Pregnant with her third child, Mrs. Farand traveled the 75 km that separated her from the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center in Montreal for the umpteenth time to ask for help for her eldest.
The latter has undergone a battery of tests. She ended up in the intensive care unit, in a forced coma for 21 days.
"She had catastrophic epilepsy […] It was really bad. It was in this context that we made a big decision with the family ", reports the neurologist who treated it, Lionel Carmant, now Minister Delegate for Health.
Until then, the mother refused to remove from her "baby" a part of the brain, a delicate intervention called lobectomy, because of the risks. She changed her mind after talking to a dad whose son was sentenced to death. He would have given everything so that his child had one chance to survive. She therefore authorized the surgery, asking the health professionals only one thing:
"Bring her back alive! "
Neurosurgeon Louis Crevier performed the surgery on March 30, 2009 at Sainte-Justine Hospital.
"We had virtually removed all his right frontal lobe, it's a big chunk of the brain. […] Fortunately for her, it worked well, "recalls the doctor.
Chloé Jacques immediately stopped her epileptic seizures and regained her smile. She relearned to eat, walk, talk.
Spectacular recovery
"It was spectacular as a recovery," enthuses Dr. Carmant.
Despite her slight developmental delay, she attended regular elementary school in grade 6. She also excels in figure skating.
The girl had one relapse in May 2017 as she prepared to leave for school. She collapsed in the house and had seizures.
"We had the fright of our life," breathes the mother.
The incident never happened again.
"It's a scary disease, but there is hope," says Farand.
What is epilepsy?
It is a temporary disruption of electrical activity of the brain that causes different types of seizures. These can be manifested by simple "absences" or the contraction and convulsion of the patient's muscles.
People with refractory epilepsy are "drug-resistant", that is, their disease can not be controlled with medication.
Source: Epilepsy Quebec
Minister wants to promote access to the operation
The Minister for Health wants to expand access to brain lobectomy for patients with some type of severe epilepsy.
"It's particularly screaming! Raises the Caquist Lionel Carmant, who wants to make things happen.
This neurologist has been treating epilepsy for 24 years before going into politics in the fall of 2018. He laments that brain lobectomy is underutilized in American patients with refractory epilepsy, which can not be controlled by medication and other treatments.
"This is the only way to cure them," pleads the member for Taillon, Montérégie.
Neurosurgeon Louis Crevier recalls that lobectomy of the brain is a solution of last resort which nonetheless demonstrates an encouraging success rate.
"We still have a 80% chance of curing epilepsy," he says.
According to him, patients who are not completely free of the disease will at least see their seizures decrease. Unfortunately, between 5 and 10% will have no progress.
Technological evolution contributes to this improvement.
"There are better techniques now for imaging and detecting areas of epileptic foci," says Dr. Crevier.
If the lesion is in a safe area, the neurosurgeons will remove that part of the brain.
"If it touches the language area, for example, it will not be removed," says the specialist who now works at the CHU de Quebec.
In case of complications, paralysis of the face, arms or legs may occur.
Since epileptic seizures can interfere with brain development, some patients experience developmental delays after the operation and should be followed in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, etc.
According to Dr. Crevier, young patients who have undergone lobectomy often recover better than an adult because other areas of the brain can quickly recover the functions performed by the abducted party.
"Their brain is still developing," he says.
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