Epilepsy Surgery – Anna’s Story

​After Years of Searching, Anna Found Answers and a New Life Thanks to Boys Town Pediatric Neuroscience

After years of nationwide travel and countless procedures looking for a solution to manage her epilepsy, An​na's family found themselves at Boys Town National Research Hospital, daring to hope for a better life.

Their resilience paid off. Pediatric Neurosurgeon Dr. Mark Puccioni was determined surgery was Anna's best option. He performed two surgical procedures to remove the problem area in the brain. Since surgery, Anna's quality of life has improved dramatically. Her parents say she is more positive, upbeat and conversational.

“They [the Boys Town Pediatric Neuroscience staff] are amazing," Anna said. “They changed my life. I could not live the life I'm living right now without them, and I just thank them so much for what they did for me."

Epilepsy Surgery Changed Her Life – Anna’s Story

• Transcript

  Anna's Story - Pediatric Neurosurgery & Epilepsy Care

  We've been through a lot with her and she's been through so many procedures and you know interventions and without she'd have short-term success.

  Anna was not doing well at all. She was having several seizures a day and we didn't know what to do so we came to Boys Town and everything changed. She'd been through this in the past and it hadn't worked, but this time the doctor was determined this was going to be the answer. I was cautiously optimistic but not thinking this was going to be a game changer.

  It has been a game changer. Before surgery I felt absolutely horrible. I was always tired. I couldn't stay awake. I was on so much meds, it was hard to process, hard to think, just it was hard to do anything. I just felt like a totally new person and it was just so amazing. Seizures used to be a daily occurrence, sometimes several times a day. Now it's very rare to her to even have one, so quality of life has been 100 turnaround for her. She's doing things in school that we didn't think were going to be possible. I'm proud of her and it's such a relief to see how she's turned around. She's way more positive, just upbeat, way more able to have a back and forth conversation, not just with me and with Aaron, but with a lot of people and people she doesn't even know. Which before wasn't, she would always look to me to answer for her and now she's answering for herself and really advocating for herself in school and just in general, so it's been pretty neat to see. The reputation of Boys Town being such a world-class institute and then having such personal relationships with staff was was really something that I think took us all back. From the moment we walked in the door, we felt like people cared, it felt like people were interested in her actually getting better. The doctors are amazing obviously. I thank them a million times and I'll continue to do so. The whole department is incredible, they're amazing. They changed my life. I could not ever live the life I'm living without them right now and I thank them so much for what they did for me. Each day is a new success, so we're just taking it one day at a time and appreciating what we have.