Sawyer Benjamin Sherwood was born on November 16, 1994 in Boulder, Colorado. He and his sister, Amanda, who is one and a half years older, were great buddies and loved playing outside. We moved to Vista, CA in August of 2000 and we enjoyed the weather and the beach immensely. Sawyer started playing in the Vista National Little League at the age of five and played for three years with his dad, Bill, as coach. He was a natural and even won an award for ‘Player with the Best Arm.’

Everybody who knew Sawyer loved him. He was a very caring and sensitive little boy, not to mention adorable.

Sawyer began having problems in the Fall of 2002 at age 7 1/2. He was having difficulty in school and it was suggested by his teacher that we have him evaluated for ADD. He was a bright boy and was just coming to the age where he was more social, so we thought he just needed a little extra help staying focused and that seemed to help.

In November, he had a couple of episodes where he woke up in the morning and complained of eye pain and nausea but had no fever. After a long nap he was fine again. We took  him to his pediatrician who said it was most likely a recurring viral infection. In March of 2003 he woke up in the middle of the night with a severe headache. Again, we took him to the pediatrician, who was not his regular doc, who now diagnosed him with migraine headaches. I asked if we should do a CAT scan to rule out anything else since all of these things seemed to be occurring over that past several months. The doctor told me adamantly that “ADD does not cause migraines” and that he could see nothing that looked neurologically wrong and we certainly would not want to take on that expense. We assumed the doctor was right and that the recurring viral infection symptoms were actually caused by the migraines. He was still having trouble with his school work so we scheduled an ADD evaluation with his primary care pediatrician. We got a much worse diagnosis before he made it to that appointment.

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