Saving Jesse - A Diary of Rasmussen's Syndrome

Rasmussen's Syndrome is a disease that attacks the most innocent among us: our children. Its cause and cure are unknown. Its preferred victims are bright, healthy children between the ages of 1-10 yrs. old. It begins with a seizure, which become progressively more frequent and severe. The child deteriorates mentally, emotionally and physically as the disease takes hold. Its social and psychological effects are even more devastating. It continues its destruction until it has destroyed one hemisphere of the brain. The only treatment is hemispherectomy - removal of 1/2 the brain, in a desperate hope to stop the destruction.

Nicky Armstrong suffered alongside her son, Jesse, as he was forced to endure a disease that she came to think of as a thief - a thief that came in silence and secrecy to steal even-larger pieces of her child's life and mind. Saving Jesse is the story of that thief's journey through their lives. It is about a mother's struggle to understand what was happening to her beloved once healthy son. It's about her fears and failures, frequent temptations to despair and ultimate triumph as family and community conspired to "cheat the thief."

Saving Jesse is based on a diary Nicky started when she was asked by physicians to record the frequency and duration of Jesse's seizures. It became much more than a simple log. Told at the pace of a well plotted novel, Saving Jesse is a story that will touch every parent's heart. It is a story of hope and triumph in the face of overwhelming odds. It is a story of faith. It is a story of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. It is, finally, a story of love - as all such stories must be.

Saving Jesse is Nicky Armstrong's first book. She is married, a mother of two children and lives in central Saskatchewan.