Coquitlam man with epilepsy advocates for surgical seizure treatment only available in the U.S.

29-year-old Daniel DelBianco was a teenager playing major junior hockey when he experienced his first seizure. In the decade since, he’s been diagnosed with a seizure disorder that impacts every part of his personal and professional life.

29-year-old Daniel DelBianco was a teenager playing major junior hockey when he experienced his first seizure. In the decade since, he’s been diagnosed with a seizure disorder that impacts every part of his personal and professional life.

“I like blank out for five to 10 seconds,” he said, adding the seizures are unpredictable and resistant to epilepsy medication. “It’s very hard to hold a normal job, especially in areas where I put myself in danger or others in danger.”

In July, DelBianco had two surgeries where doctors implanted electrodes in his brain to try to pinpoint the exact origin of his epilepsy. There was hope that part of his brain could be removed in order to stop the seizures, but the source turned out to be a section of his brain responsible for speech and memory, which can’t be operated on.

“After that second one, they said they couldn’t do anything,” said DelBianco.

“That was the chance to get rid of his seizures, and that didn’t happen,” added his mother Kelly DelBianco.

Doctors at Vancouver General Hospital told the family there is one last treatment option called Responsive Neuro Stimulation, or RNS.

“Two electrodes implanted deep in the brain essentially talk to each other, where one detects a seizure, the onset of a seizure, and the other one stimulates an adjacent part of the brain in an effort to mitigate the onset of the seizure,” said Dr. Judy Illes, a professor of Neurology at UBC.