It was very-- I knew it was very hard on us when he was in the hospital. Not knowing what was going on, and not knowing if we were making the right calls. 

Mm, yummy. 

Want a green bean? 

You have all these plans made and these ideas formed in your head as to what the future should look like, and six months into life, they're just blown away. 

It was like being stuck in one of those movies-- in a movie you see a person in a situation like, oh, my gosh. How are they dealing with that? And then all of a sudden we're those characters. We're in that situation where it almost seems impossible. 

I was at work, and Rachel called and was frantic. And she said, something's wrong. I'm not sure what's going on. That night, he had another seizure. And then the next morning, he had a seizure that lasted seven minutes. 

When we saw Walker, we're presented with this beautiful, six-month-old boy who just looks perfect in every way. But parents brought a video, and what they saw in the video was that he was having these episodes where his body would crunch up. And it's a very quick movement. It's just a brief second, but then it happens again, and then it happens again. And that's characteristic for this condition called infantile spasms. That's a diagnosis that's considered catastrophic infantile epilepsy. 

We want to make epilepsy something that is only in history books. 

Here's right. And then obviously right without left. 

Right. 

We're not satisfied with the current epilepsy treatments. 

And although it's better over the right-- 

We're all committed to, in some way, curing epilepsy in the future. And we know that will only come through research-- active research that we're all participating in. 

There are a lot of unknowns in pediatric neurology, but what really appealed to me about UVA was how invested everybody here is in combining the best patient care with making advances in the laboratory. It's achieving excellence in both areas without sacrificing one or the other. 

There's not a lot of research out there. No one knows what causes infantile spasms. But it was nice to feel that there was someone on our side; that we had someone fighting for us and really cared about Walker's best interests. 

We're not stranded on this island. We have this huge support system. 

And no matter what time of the day we're calling-- if it's 5:00 o'clock and they're just closing up the office, then they put us through, and we always have our questions answered. 

Dr. Jansen, especially when we were in the hospital, would sit there for hours if we needed her to and just answer questions. And as soon as she walked in, she's like, hey, what do we want to know today? 

How about his sleep at night? 

It's so much better. So much better. He'll go to bed at 7:00. 

Hope is why we do what we do. I play my part in that by doing research, by trying to better understand, why do children develop infantile spasms? Why do babies have abnormalities in the way their brain forms before they're born? And that by getting those answers, you can take that back to the families and to the children to say, we understand what's going on, and this is how we can make it better. 

Can you say, bye, bye? 

There we go. 

It's been a challenge, but it's finally to the point where we're comfortable enough with Walker's progress that we can take that plunge and buy a home and have a place that Walker can grow up. 

We would not be in such a good place right now if it wasn't for the help that we received from our neurology team. Walker has exceeded everyone's expectations, and he's here because of them. And we have the boy that we have today because of UVA. 

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