In Which We Mess With Connor's Meds Again

So bright and early this morning I rolled Connor into the van and drove up to Seattle Children's to see the neurologist.  Early morning appointments are nice because no one is at the hospital so you tend to get in quickly, but they're kind of offset by all the sitting in rush hour traffic you have to do to get there.

Anyway, Connor's blood levels weren't all back yet-- the only things back were the general workup and the Depakote, which turned out to be on the low range of normal.  We're still waiting on the Lamictal and the Keppra.  In the meantime our neurologist went ahead and decided to up Connor's Depakote.  Once we get the Lamictal levels back we'll discover if we need to lower that medication or not.  It's kind of a crazy seesaw sort of way to manage things, but it can't really be helped.

Oh, and we also discovered that one of his pancreatic enzymes is now reading high.  It's not completely off the register high, but it's high enough that we'll be coming back to the hospital in a few weeks to get it rechecked.  Depakote can apparently cause pancreatitis as a rare side effect.  Wouldn't that be fun? 

Yeesh.

Otherwise things went all right today.  Connor, I'm happy to say, only had one seizure today; after I gave him the upped dose he perked up and seemed to be feeling much better.  It doesn't help that he's got three loose teeth right now (all in the bottom) and also is cutting his first permanent tooth.  When we went to occupational therapy late in the afternoon all he really wanted to do was chew on their vibrating toys.  He ended up completely crashing on Jeremy this evening, which I'm not surprised by.  We had a very busy day and he spent a good portion of the second half of it with his mouth stretched open in a huge, jaw-cracking yawn.  It made me tired just looking at him. 

Here's something weird to think about, by the way.  You know how yawns are contagious and whenever you see someone else yawn you have to yawn too?  Well, Connor doesn't have that mechanism, or at least he hasn't developed it yet.  I've never seen him "catch" a yawn from someone else.  There's an interesting article on Discovery News that covers this very topic.  Interesting!

Anyway, we're hoping that the medication change will give Connor a reprieve from his seizures for a little while.  And also that he won't get pancreatitis.  Because that would be bad.

Yeah.

~Jess