His brain is doing jumping jacks!

Bug Boy explained that when he has seizures it is like his brain is "doing jumping jacks." We thought this was an interesting analogy and very effective at letting us how he feels. The medications have been working well for both boys and we have seen good progress. They seem more aware, more alert, happier and calmer.

Bugaboo has had twelve seizures between Friday morning and Monday morning. He does not have grand mal seizures (yet) but an interesting phenomen called Complex Partial Seizures. Basically his brain has a very short version of a grand mal, some electrical short circuiting. The doc called it a tonic-clonic seizure. Since he has a diagnosis of Landau-Kleffner syndrome it does not suprise me in the least. The difficulty with this situation is that he will continue to have seizures for some time. The meds will only do so much.

Monday (yesterday) Bugaboo's bus arrived and he was one sleepy little boy. The driver and aide do their best to keep him awake since they know that I have a better time in the evening when he does not nap (because he will not go to bed until midnight!). He was so sleepy he put his arms up for me to carry up the driveway and steps and did not even watch the bus pull away, nor did he watch the 4:00 bus bring the elementary kids home. His TSS arrived and Ian was just camped out on the couch kinda dazed. We tried getting him to do a few things but he seemed tired and distracted. Then he had four seizures in two hours and I put a call into the Neuro. The Nurse Practioner called me back and did not like what I was describing so she called the doc. He called back and said they were clustering, which means they are getting into a close pattern and will progress VERY quickly into a grand mal. In fact, we were probably leading up to one in the next few hours. In order to head it off before it started, the doc asked us to give him the Diastat usually reserved for grand mals and then double his Klonipin. At bedtime we were to give him his usual dose of lamictal. These are all very powerful seizure medications and muscle relaxants so we thought Bugaboo would pass right out. Riiiiight.

Bugaboo was loopy and could not get his sea legs but it took us over two hours to get him to sleep. He even ate a brownie, his third brand-new food in a week (the other two are m&ms and ice cream, guess who is developing a sweet tooth?). But sleep was very far away! We even resorted to a car ride and he was still awake upon returning. Mommy and Daddy went to bed and he was still in his room, in bed, undressing himself and redressing himself, singing to himself in that sing-songy voice. We awoke to him still singing at 6:30 am. I am not sure how much sleep he had.

I prepared his meds and breakfast and Bugaboo had one more seizure. He has had his medication and seems to be in a holding pattern. We will call the doctor soon and let him know how Bugaboo is and they will decide if we need to come in. Since I am not exactly anticipating our SEVENTH trip to the ER in 2006 with great joy, I'd prefer that we did not have to go at all.

Bugaboo has to stay home today so we can monitor him (Yippee! A whole day of him tearing around the house destroying everything!) and because the meds can make him "impaired." Yeah, because he isn't impaired already! HA! I know, I know. They mean that he will be a little hung-over. Plus they want to see how many more he might have today. I think I am going to plan some shopping in order to keep him strapped down for a while...