Melissa and Rob Williams’ parenting nightmare began with the sounds of laughter in the kitchen.
Essley, the couple’s 2-year-old daughter, was playing with her 7-month-old brother, Emmett. But when Melissa came in to join the fun, the sight of Emmett’s bobbing head didn’t make her laugh.
“I looked at what he was doing and thought, ‘That’s weird,’” she recalled.
Five days later, the St. Charles family found themselves in a hospital room. Sensors and tubes covered Emmett’s body as Melissa and Rob stared at the display screen of an EEG monitor and sought Google’s counsel on how to interpret what they saw. Doctors would tell them Emmett had a rare form of epilepsy that, in most cases, causes major developmental problems.
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