Ups and Downs

Kate has been more interactive and alert the past few days.

Unfortunately, her seizure frequency has increased significantly to around 20/day and are more pronounced. The Tranxene doesn't seem to be keeping them in check as well as it once has. It has been a hard few days.

As of Tuesday, we have been giving Kate her phenobarbital in crushed pill form, instead of the liquid form. It is so much easier and NOT traumatic for Kate! Thankfully, Kelly had thought to ask if it came in a pill form... and it did! Her tranxene comes as a pill and has been so easy to give. If we had only thought to ask sooner!

Kate will finish with her Trileptal tomorrow. She was fully weaned off the Topamax earlier this week. We're hoping that her increased seizure activity is a result of the weaning process, and that it will decrease as soon as the meds are out of her system.

Tomorrow we will try an alternative treatment that involves vitamins (one is B-6). Apparently, some children respond well to this if they have a deficiency (which apparently they cannot test for). We'll see what happens.

Today we met with Kate's new physical therapist, Kathy. She is wonderful and comes highly recommended from a friend. We are both excited to begin helping Kate catch up. We already have two 'exercises' to work on with Kate.

Monday Kate has a follow-up appointment with the Epilepsy Clinic at UCSF. We're looking forward to another 'face-to-face' discussion with her nurse and doctor.

Happy Halloween!