Bailey Bates’ seizures started when she was just nine months old. By the time she was three, she was having a seizure every few minutes.

“She was just losing everything she had learned,” her mother Amanda said. “She was just in my arms all day, every day.”

Bailey was not responding to medication. One attempt at surgery had also failed. Bailey’s parents flew from their home in Utah to Cleveland Clinic’s Epilepsy Center.

“These children are really at the end of the road,” said Deepak Lachhwani, MD at the Epilepsy Center.

Surgeons knew the seizures were originating deep inside Bailey’s brain, too deep for them to pinpoint the location from outside the skull. So they drilled a series of holes in Bailey’s skull, and inserted electric probes into the brain.

Sure enough, they found the source of Bailey’s seizures, but unfortunately it was in a region Dr. Lachhwani describes as “prime real estate” for the brain — the left frontal lobe. This is where language is located.

Bailey was lucky. She was so young, her brain had, by itself, switched the language center to another, undamaged part of the brain.

Surgeons believed it was safe to go in and remove the damaged section where her seizures were originating.

Bailey’s parents were not convinced. They had already put their young daughter through one brain surgery, which had not worked.

“We determined that was enough,” her mother said. “It’s scary to have to take out your child’s brain and not know the aftermath.” But Cleveland’s surgeons had a trick up their sleeve — a way to prove that, this time, they had found the right spot.

The electric probes were still inside Bailey’s brain. By shooting a tiny amount of electric current into the area they had pinpointed, they were able to trigger a seizure.

“When they made her have a seizure there in front of us…that made the decision for us right there,” said Amanda Bailey.

Surgeons removed a piece of brain the size of a lime from Bailey’s frontal lobe, and it worked.

Lashhwani said Bailey is “completely unscathed and without seizures.” From being at the end of the road at age 3, she is now looking forward to a full and rich life.