Don't cry for me Argentina

[caption id="attachment_2859" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Here is what we would like Ellie to look like before we leave the hospital this time!"][/caption]

Ellie started having more seizure activity about a month ago.  The seizures now look completely different, with part of her body convulsing but Ellie still able to talk and answer questions appropriately.  Our neurologist suspected that our current anti-seizure medication (Trileptal) might actually be causing the seizures.  He suggested switching to an anti-seizure medication (Kepra) that we tried several years ago that also seemed to cause her to have seizures.  We started increasing her Kepra dosage this weekend and Ellie took a sudden, sharp unexpected downward turn.  She was totally out of it, hardly able to stand, drooling a lot, slurring her words, and the dreaded falling down. 

Monday and Tuesday we kept Ellie home from school because I could not imagine any kind of education happening in the state she was in.  We decreased her Kepra dosage.  Ellie on Tuesday morning had a seizure.  Or more likely, she had several seizures.  She then fell asleep which is pretty typical after a seizure.  When Thom returned home, we went to check on Ellie.  We discovered that Ellie had wet the bed and was not arousable.  We called 911 and an ambulance was dispatched to take her to the hospital. 

But before the ambulance arrived, a fire truck arrived.  Then the ambulance.  It caused quite a commotion on our street.  Our super neighbor, Kathy came over and collected Ben for a storytime at her house while all the emergency crew was on hand.  Another unknown to us neighbor stood outside of our door  praying loudly.  Then our neighbor, Carl and his girlfriend, Coleen asked if everything was ok.  Afterwards I thought about how we have done all this before, but without the ambulance and fanfare, just quietly loading Ellie into our car and driving to the ER. 

Once again the responses of my children were quite contrasting-.  When Ellie came to a bit, she was most unexcited to be heading back to the hospital.  Ben was super excited at all of the commotion.  Lotta was exhausted and slept through the whole thing.  I kept thinking, "I can't believe how many people are seeing my incredibly messy house!!" And I'll have to inquire what thoughts were going through Thom's head.  I imagine something more appropriate than worrying about the status of our home. 

Not surprisingly, Ellie was admitted to the hospital last night.  An EEG was conducted and showed that Ellie was having many small seizures along with a pretty intense one at 4:30am.  A quick brain MRI was conducted this morning which showed her shunt is still functioning.  Basically we are thinking that the anti-seizure meds may be causing the seizures and other symptoms we have been seeing.  Now we will be working to ween her off the meds and start her on some new, better medications. 

So don't cry for me Argentina, I'm just thinking of this as our Sehyhefiuy9uiruptember stay.  And fortunately for us, we did NOT have an August stay even though we have averaged one stay a month for the rest of the year.  I feel quite confident that we will leave the hospital with Ellie feeling better than when we entered.  Because really it would be highly challenging for her to live her life the way things were going.   So being in the hospital for a few days to get all this sorted out feels well worth it.