Ho, ho, ho! Gather around, my little elves, for a tale not of the North Pole, but of the brave journey of young warriors battling a storm not of snow, but of seizures. In a land not so far away, a group of spirited children, each bearing the heavy sack of non-lesional, drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE), embarked on a magical sleigh ride towards hope. Among them were little heroes with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS), a challenge so great that even the jolliest of spirits would pause.

In this story, our workshop is not filled with toys, but with the most advanced tools and a dedicated surgeon, our very own Santa, who believes in miracles. This Santa doesn’t slide down chimneys but performs wonders through deep brain stimulation (DBS), targeting the centromedian thalamic nuclei (CMTN) – a beacon of light in the dense fog of epilepsy.

Our tale unfolds between the years 2020 and 2021, with six brave adventurers – four fearless girls and two bold boys, ranging from 6 to 19 years old. Each had journeyed through at least six long winters of refractory seizures, with four battling this blizzard since their first Christmas. Despite their stockings being filled with antiseizure medications and some having the guiding stars of a vagus nerve stimulator or a corpus callosotomy, the storm raged on.

But then, our Santa, with a twinkle in his eye and a steady hand, placed bilateral DBS devices into the CMTN of these young warriors. The procedure was as quick as Santa’s visit on Christmas Eve, lasting only 2 days in the hospital, and not a single child awoke to find coal in their stocking – no adverse neurological effects were reported, a Christmas miracle!

As the months passed, the magic of DBS began to show. Four children saw their storm of seizures calm by more than 60%, with one little elf experiencing a 10% reduction, and one whose storm remained unchanged, yet no storms grew worse. It was a gift of hope, a testament to the spirit of perseverance and the magic of medical innovation.

This tale, my dear elves, adds a new chapter to the sparse storybook of CMTN DBS for children with DRE from LGS, suggesting that this magical intervention is a safe and effective sleigh ride towards a brighter future. It’s a reminder that even in the face of the most daunting storms, there’s always a glimmer of hope, a possibility of a miracle, and the need for further adventures to ensure every child wakes up to a seizure-free Christmas morning.

So, let’s raise our glasses of milk and cookies to these brave children and the medical Santas, with hopes for more miracles to come. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!