Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Owen Jacobsen, 12, found relief from seizures after laser surgery at Primary Children's Hospital.
- Doctors discovered a hidden tumor causing frequent seizures, leading to a successful surgery.
- Owen has been seizure-free since September 2023, returning to his normal activities.
ST. GEORGE — Owen Jacobsen is a bright 12-year-old, actively involved in his school council, band, swim team, and MATHCOUNTS team. But what sets him apart? His resilience.
Early last year, Owen started having unexplainable seizures.
"He started telling me that he was feeling some weird sensations in his left arm," his mom Rindi Jacobsen said. "One morning, he just had a full grand mal seizure right there sitting next to me, and it lasted a long time. It was really scary."
Doctors found a cyst in Owen's brain; they thought it was the cause of the seizure and an isolated occurrence. But despite medication, the episodes worsened.
"They were happening every other day or sometimes daily," Rindi Jacobsen said. "He started to learn to just yell, 'Seizure!' If I ever heard him yell, my heart would just start to pound. We were just always kind of on edge."
He even had one at school.
"My arm kind of started shaking uncontrollably," Owen said. "It was kinda scary not knowing when or where they were going to happen, so I was sometimes nervous to leave my mom's side."
Owen had to take a break from sports and school and instead switched to doing online classes at home.
After Owen's father suggested they take a closer look at the scans, doctors found a small tumor hidden by the cyst.
"It was just this spot in his brain that is directly linked to kind of the left side of his body and his movement, and it just started to interfere enough that he started feeling it in his hand then his arm," Rindi Jacobsen said.
Owen was referred to Primary Children's Hospital, where they met pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Bollo. Bollo recommended Owen undergo a high-tech procedure called laser interstitial thermal therapy, which is less invasive than a typical craniotomy surgery and is only offered in a few children's hospitals nationwide.
"It's a laser surgery where we use a robot to put a laser probe in the tumor and ablate it or destroy it," Bollo said. "One tiny incision, one stitch, and that's it."
Owen had the surgery in September 2023 and hasn't had any issues since.
"That's the last time that he's felt anything in his arm or had any seizures," Jacobsen said. "We just kept waiting for it to happen, and he just kept going day after day seizure-free."
While recovery hasn't been easy — Rindi Jacobsen said it's taken some time for him to "bounce back" — Owen is once again feeling like himself, back to doing the things he loves.
"Here we are one year later, Owen is just back to normal, thriving; he's better than ever," Jacobsen said.
Primary Children's Hospital was ranked No. 1 in the nation for neurology and neurosurgery patient outcomes for the third year in a row, according to the U.S. News & World Report.
