Copley boy shares ‘miracle’ with others
Grant Osborne, shown in center
with red collar, hosted a group of local children at
his birthday party and will donate all his gifts to
the Pediatric Neurosurgery Monitoring Unit at the Cleveland
Clinic. Photo
courtesy of Dana Osborne
By Kathleen Folkerth
COPLEY — In the past year, Grant Osborne has spent a week at his grandparents’ home, gone camping with his family and taken a trip to Walt Disney World. That might not be unusual for a 7-year-old, but for Grant, these activities are nothing short of a miracle, according to his mother.
Grant, the son of Dana and Mark Osborne, of Copley, had surgery last November to correct a seizure disorder that previously left the boy unable to do the kinds of things that other children take for granted.
“Truly we believe we’ve been given a miracle by the Cleveland Clinic,” said Dana Osborne.
It was there that Dr. William Bingaman performed a right functional hemispherectomy on Grant that has resulted in an end to the seizures that had plagued him since he was 10 months old.
As a way to give back to the
place that helped him so much, Grant decided to celebrate
his recent birthday by giving all the gifts he received
to the Pediatric Neurosurgery Monitoring Unit at the
Cleveland Clinic. In that unit, patients are evaluated
to see if they will make good candidates for the surgery
Grant had. The children are monitored via electroencephalogram
(EEG) and video, and when they have
a seizure, it can be mapped to see where in the brain
the seizure is coming from.
Osborne said Grant developed
his medical problems because he had a stroke while in
utero, which left scar tissue on the right side of his
brain. At 10 months, he had his first seizure.
“We were unhappy with the
fact that the older he got the more frequently he had
seizures,” Osborne said.
The types of seizures Grant had
could only be stopped with medication, Osborne said,
resulting in at least 20 trips to the emergency room
over the years. He also had to take three medications
regularly, which left him with vision problems, dizziness
and drowsiness.
Grant’s health problems
didn’t just affect him. Osborne said Grant’s
older sister, Kristin, worried a lot about her brother
and was anxious every morning, since
that’s when the seizures tended to take place.
Osborne said she and her husband
heard about the seizure-ending surgery but didn’t
jump at the chance right away.
“Nobody wants their kid
to have brain surgery, so we did put it off a little
bit,” she said. “But the risks surprisingly
are very low. Dr. Bingaman has never lost a patient.”
She added that the Cleveland
Clinic is renowned for performing the surgery, and people
come from all over to have it done there.
The couple knew that Grant would
lose some use of his left hand and part of his peripheral
vision, but that didn’t weigh too heavily on them.
“It wasn’t about
the risks — it was about weighing the good and
bad and hoping we were making the right decision for
Grant,” Osborne said. “Looking back
on it, I wish we would have done it sooner.”
Grant was evaluated in the monitoring
unit in July of 2005, where he spent five days hooked
up to monitors waiting for a seizure to happen so it could
be tracked. His parents took shifts staying with him and
were prepared with games, puzzles and activities to keep
him busy.
“He was constantly being
monitored,” Osborne said. “It gets pretty
boring for the kids and the parents, but we were fortunate
because we had a group of friends that put together
a care package for him.”
It was that experience that inspired
the Osbornes to donate toys and games to the unit that
children who are being monitored can use to make the
days of waiting for a seizure to pass more easily.
“Grant and I were talking,
and I said, ‘Your birthday is coming up. What
if we took some of your
gifts there?’ And he said, ‘We could take
them all,’” Osborne said.
So she got a wish list from the unit
and wrote on the birthday party invitation that Grant
planned to donate his gifts to the unit.
Twenty-five children came to
Grant’s party Sept. 16, and the family was amazed
at how generous people were.
“It’s unbelievable,”
Osborne said of the results. “We have five full
bags of gifts.”
Among the items given were hand-held
electronic games, puzzles, craft sets and modeling clay.
Osborne said the family plans
to take the gifts to the Cleveland Clinic next month.
“They’re very excited
about having us come up there,” Osborne said.
“Grant just can’t wait to get up there and
meet some of the kids.”
In the meantime, Grant has enjoyed
nearly a year of being
seizure free. He is still on one medication, but that
may be stopped soon, his mother said. He is working
on restoring the use of his left hand and participates
in activities like swimming, soccer and even jujitsu.
Because the family doesn’t
have to worry about him having seizures, they have more
freedom to travel and enjoy the things that many families
do. Grant even takes the bus now to Arrowhead Primary
School, where he is in the first grade.
“We used to think, what
if we got in an airplane and something happened? We
don’t have those concerns anymore,” Osborne
said.
The Osbornes also participate
in the Cleveland Clinic’s Pediatric Epilepsy Support
Group, where they meet with families who are considering
the surgery for their children.
They hope that by sharing their
story, other families will
realize that help is available for some children who
suffer from seizures.
“There are so many children
out there suffering from epilepsy, and some of them
can be helped by surgery but may not realize that it
is an option,” she said. “Our lives have
changed so much for the better and his life for the
better.”
Big sister Kristin Osborne, 10,
helped brother Grant celebrate his 7th birthday. Photo
courtesy of Dana Osborne
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