The Iowa Hawkeyes will play the Minnesota Gophers this weekend, and 11-year-old Leah McClain will be representing the Children's Hospital as a Kid Captain!

Leah now lives in Pittsfield, Illinois, but she used to live in Iowa, and she's spent quite a bit of time at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. It all started one January night when she was 7-year-old. Her parents said that they knew something was wrong when she walked into their living room, but Leah couldn't respond and was quickly losing the ability to walk and stay focused. About 45-minutes after they arrived at a local emergency room, doctors realized she was having a seizure, and that's when she was airlifted to a hospital in Des Moines. After several days of improvement, but still no answers, doctors thought that the seizure could have been an isolated incident. Unfortunately, two months later it happened again. That's when a local pediatrician recommended the UI Stead Family Children's Hospital.

Leah underwent a 48-hour EEG, and doctors discovered that she was having "constant subclinical seizures." The next step was brain surgery. After the second surgery, it was determined that Leah was born with cortical dysplasia. She now takes medication for seizures and has some vision loss on her left side, but otherwise she's back to her old self!

To read more on Leah's story, click HERE.

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