Julia Wasiluk and her son Cameron, six, lived with their family in Warren, but made the trek up I-75 each morning for school.
Wasiluk taught kindergarten at Webber Elementary, while Cameron would take the same class at Blanche Sims.
Just a couple of months into their daily journey last fall, and things suddenly changed.
Wasiluk said Cameron had hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), a common illness of children at the kindergarten age.
Cameron’s HFMD seemed typical, characterized by a fever and sores in the mouth, but lingered for a while.
On November 4, 2005, a Saturday, Cameron expressed a wish to go to Chuck E Cheese’s, to celebrate his feeling better.
Wasiluk recalled her son wanting to take a nap that day before the trip, which she said is unusual for him, as he didn’t take naps anymore.
When she and her husband, Kurt, tried to wake Cameron up, he didn’t want to get up and continued to fall back to sleep.
‘We noticed he wasn’t talking for the first five or 10 minutes,? Wasiluk said. ‘We thought he was playing a joke on us.?
She said that playing a joke like that seemed like something the excitable Cameron would do, but when they noticed his extremely dilated eyes, she and Kurt realized he was not trying to be funny.
They decided to take Cameron to the hospital, and as they were getting ready to leave, he had a seizure.
They called an ambulance, which took Cameron to St. John’s Hospital in Macomb.
‘When the paramedics were working on him, they noticed his temperature was 104,? Wasiluk said, adding that they believed the seizures were related to the high fever.
Wasiluk, who had never seen a seizure before, said Cameron had seizure after seizure in the ambulance, and was transferred to Children’s Hospital in Detroit.
He spent all of November and December in the Intensive Care Unit as doctors attempted to stop the onslaught of seizures. One method included the use of pentobarb, a drug that can induce comas.
Wasiluk said Cameron was in a pentobarb coma for over a week.
‘When he came out of it, he was still having seizures,? she said.
Another method involved putting Cameron on a Ketogenic diet, which Wasiluk said was like an extreme Atkins diet, to starve the brain — thus preventing it from expending energy.
As doctors continued to find a long-term solution, Cameron was transferred out of the ICU. However, he was transferred back after developing an allergy to one of his medications and getting hives all over his body.
On his sixth birthday, January 5, Cameron was transferred to the rehab section.
‘He had to relearn how to sit and keep his head up,? Wasiluk said.
Finally, on March 3, Cameron returned home. But that same night, he began having seizures again and soon returned to Children’s Hospital.
Wasiluk said the seizures began getting closer and closer together. She said he would have between 50 and 100 a day, and estimated that Cameron had over 2,000 seizures in the month of March alone.
The Wasiluks hoped Cameron could be transferred to a clinic in Cleveland, but the seizures simply wouldn’t allow for travel.
At the end of the month, he underwent surgery to remove his left temporal lobe and part of his occipital lobe, as these areas of the brain were accounting for about 95 percent of the seizures.
‘He couldn’t even sustain himself without surgery,? Wasiluk said.
After the surgery came more rehab, and Cameron finally returned home at the end of April.
The Wasiluks now have four people working with Cameron throughout the day.
‘He’s starting to walk again,? Wasiluk said. ‘Every day he wants to walk and walk for hours.?
The process was especially tough on Cameron’s younger sister, two-year-old Grace, who spent months away from home with friends and family.
Since everyone has returned home, Wasiluk has noticed a role reversal between her two children.
Cameron was eager to help care for his baby sister when she was first born, and now Grace likes to help care for him.
Cameron still has an average of seven seizures a week, lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to four minutes.
Two weeks ago he had a 13-minute seizure which nearly required a trip back to the hospital.
Wasiluk said they are prepared to handle the seizures at home, but only to an extent.
‘It’s our hope that the seizures will slow down or he’ll outgrow them completely,? she said.
Cameron recently underwent tests for his hearing and vision, and Wasiluk is hopeful that his brain might heal a bit.
Doctors say that developing brains as young as Cameron’s have an ability to take over tasks from other parts of the brain.
Wasiluk said they are taking a ‘wait and see? approach at this point.
The family is glad to be back in their Warren home, but Cameron and Julia remain in the hearts of their fellow students and teachers here in Lake Orion.
The Wasiluk family’s rough times were made a bit easier by the outpouring of help from the Lake Orion community, including a check for nearly $30,000 from the Mike Quinn Golf Classic.
‘We were so relieved to hear that, because my husband and I were not working, and we were living at the Ronald McDonald House,? Wasiluk said.
The money has helped to pay for home care workers and other things that their insurance wouldn’t cover, such as a wheelchair.
‘Mostly, it just took away that fear of ‘How are we going to handle all of this??? she said.
The staff at Webber also held a dinner for them and the other residents at the Ronald McDonald House. The staff at Pine Tree (where Wasiluk used to teach) and Blanche Sims have also been very supportive.
‘We were blown away by the benefit,? Wasiluk said. ‘All the effort they put into it was amazing.?
The family was especially shocked by the help they received from people that didn’t even know their situation.
‘We can’t believe the love from family, friends, and even strangers,? she said.