Gabriella Grace Dolniak was born on August 1, 2011. She was born with a port wine stain (PWS) on the right side of her forehead and eye area. With this PWS came possibilities of other medical conditions. In February 2012, at 6 months she had her first seizures and spent 8 days in the hospital trying to get her seizures under control and regulate the medications being given to her to control her se
izures. While in the hospital, she had several tests completed (CT scan, MRI, & EEG), to determine the cause of her seizures. Her diagnosis was Bilateral Sturge Weber Syndrome and that she had had a stroke. This syndrome (disease) has caused Gabby to suffer from seizures, causing weakness in her extremities and with those come developmental delays. With this disease there are possibilities of having additional strokes, developing glaucoma and/or various other issues. To date she has been hospitalized approximately 15 times and is on 4 medications and a Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS), which was surgically implanted in September 2012 to help in controlling her seizure activity and hopefully reduce her medications. Gabby used to have physical, occupational and speech therapy once a week each to help get her development on track for her age group, but due to changes in the State programs she only gets a team therapy once a week. This hasn’t been very beneficial for her and we would like to get her additional therapy. Gabby is now 2 years old and has not been able to crawl on hands and knees, walk or talk. We have researched aquatic therapy and hippotherapy and these would benefit her in many areas to help her grow and strengthen her to succeed in her development and is an immediate need. This will be our next goal to get her into.