With Resiliency, Hard Work and Expert Care, Eli Triumphs Over Epilepsy

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta neurology specialists stopped his seizures with meticulous medical management and precision surgery.

For more than five years, Eli Boley has been free from the seizures that disrupted his early childhood. The 10-year-old plays football, wrestles and has made the honor roll at school. These are successes and milestones that Eli and his family were fearful might never be possible.

In 2017, physicians at Children’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center diagnosed Eli with focal cortical dysplasia (FCD), a mis-wiring of the brain that caused him to have frequent and severe seizures.

“Eli spent months at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, receiving a meticulously constructed series of medications to manage the seizures, while his physicians collaborated with the surgical team to determine if Eli would make a good candidate,” says his mom, Sarah. “We were scared to death, but throughout the whole process, we never felt alone.”

One of the surgeons standing by the Boley family was Joshua Chern, MD, division chief of neurosurgery at Children’s. He carefully considered all treatment options for Eli before performing a craniotomy to remove a walnut-sized lesion located in the front of Eli’s motor cortex.

“Surgery was delicate because the lesion was in the part of the brain that controlled his left arm and leg,” says Dr. Chern. “Disturbing healthy tissue while trying to remove the lesion could significantly affect the left side of Eli’s body.”

With the help of intraoperative MRI, which allows surgeons to more easily distinguish the tissue to be removed, Dr. Chern completed the surgery successfully. Eli had to continue taking anti-seizure medications and endured intense physical and occupational therapy at Children’s to re-learn to walk and regain his strength. But he overcame every challenge he faced.

“The resiliency of Eli reverberates louder than his voice,” says Sarah. “Eli has had a lot of life in his 10 years—from this diagnosis, brain surgery, recovery and losing his daddy suddenly in 2021. But through it all, he remains tender and sensitive to others and knows what a miracle he truly is.”