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Monday, December 28, 2009

Kellan's awakening




So it's been almost 2 weeks since we've started weaning Kellan off his anti-seizure med, and the difference in him is amazing! He is AWAKE so much more, more ALERT when he's awake, SMILES frequently-several times a day, and COOING!! It's so nice to see his personality coming through. I admit I get a little weepy every time he gives me a big smile! He is so sweet! And he is still sleeping his 7-9 hours at night, which I hear is fairly common with Ds. Christmas night he had an 'episode' that lasted about 2 hours. I got some pretty good video of it. We sort of discovered that it seems like when he starts the head tilt we can almost elicit the seizure-like activity. He had the head tilt again yesterday and this am, but we let him be tilted, didn't try to straighten him, and it passed and he relaxed quickly. I had called the pediatrician on call Fri. night, who happened to be the one we went in to originally the first time this happened, on the off chance she thought we could come get an EEG in a timely manner. She didn't think that would happen but she wanted to call Denver to see if they wanted to re-load him on the seizure med. I told her we didn't want to do that at this point, and she agreed that was ok. She was going to see today if we could put a plan in place so that we could bring him in when he starts having one to get an EEG during it. We'll see what happens with that. I am still 95% convinced he has BPT, I just wish we could get an EEG to prove they aren't seizures, or are, if that's the case. I did find a doctor in Boston that possibly has some experience with BPT and emailed him. If I don't hear back from him I just might schedule an appt with him and catch a plane to Boston!


Christmas was very nice here. Justin's family was here, cousin and fam from WI, parents, grandparents, and my mom, dad, sister and niece all came for dinner-21 in all! I only had to do the turkeys, everyone else pitched in on the rest! It was a wonderful dinner and so nice to spend time with family we don't see very often. The really nice thing for me was that every time Kellan was hungry he and I could escape to the bedroom for some peace and quiet!


Today was my first day back at work. 12 weeks sure flys by!! I missed Kellan, but thankfully Justin was off so he brought him up at lunch for me to snuggle!


I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!


One last thing-Kellan has taken to sucking his thumb the past couple weeks too!! It's sooo cute, but I really don't want him doing it!


Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Kellan having his EEG.

Back from Denver

Wow! What a trip to Denver! Kellan and I flew out Sunday night after his Baptism, which went great! I never realized how hard it is to fly alone with an infant! Thanks to my new friend Shannon's husband though, he was also on the flight and helped me! We got into Denver around 6:15 and my friend Kyle-Anne and her husband picked us up from the airport. The first thing she told me was that she cancelled her trip to Billings the next day so she could help us get to our appt, etc! How thankful was I!! Monday am we got to Denver Children's at 8:30 for Kellan's 9 am EEG. When he woke that morning he was doing the posturing with his head that was the questionable seizure activity, and I got a pretty good video of it on my cell phone. Of course he didn't do it during the EEG! He hated the whole process of attaching the electrodes (30 some of them!) and cried the whole time, which he NEVER cries! He was hungry and tired, and I finally was able to feed him but couldn't hold him, and he only ate about an ounce and fell asleep.
We got to the neuro office and he ate a little more, then puked on me, quite a bit. You'll see why I mention this later. We saw the neuro nurse practioner first and she spent about an hour with us, taking history and then examining Kellan. During the exam he again began to posture, but again was awake, alert and not obviously seizing. He did it for quite a while with her in the room. Then the doctor came in with the NP and kind of did the same thing-listened to the NP tell her the history, etc. They had had a epileptologist look at his EEG, and he said it was neither normal nor abnormal! What??!! How the heck does that happen? No seizure activity, however, so that's good. I did tell her how he has rolled several time, and she asked if he did it while arching his back during the posturing, which I told her no but she maybe didn't believe me. He proved it to her by rolling from his back to tummy on the exam table! She was very impressed with how strong he is but did admit that he is still low tone and delayed. I told her he sleeps 18-20 hours per day and I believe that is partly why he is so delayed, he's not awake long enought to develop and gain strength. I believe that his sleepiness is may be partly due to the phenobarb. So we talk about reflux and Sandofer's syndrome, which is commonly mistaken for seizures, and she brings up a somewhat new possibility-Paroxysmal Torticollis (see my favorite links). I haven't had a chance to look much up with it yet, but Justin did and says some things are very familiar. The doc says they associate this with migraines in infants. Obviously, they don't know when a baby has a headache, but they do know that small children get vertigo when they get migraines and sometimes will cock their head to either side, no preference, to alleviate the pain and or vertigo. The doc asked if anyone has migraines in the family, and yes, many do, me included. Vomiting also goes along with this, and Kellan will frequently "spit up", but not very often really "throw up". Yesterday he did several times. He also postured most of the morning. Related? I don't know. The doc did watch the video I tookl earlier and she that made her lean farther away from seizures. So after all of the doc's exam, she decided she wanted to do a 4 hour EEG, to see if we could catch these episodes and rule out seizures. And if he didn't do any of it during this EEG, they would want us to come back for a 3 DAY EEG!! She said he makes a good case for all the above, so we need to try to rule out the worst. So Kyle-Anne got to run us to a whole different hospital for the EEG, which thankfully was close to her house so she could go home while we were there. OF COURSE, he did none of the posturing the ENTIRE 4 hours!! He did do some of the smaller things we have noticed, stiffening his arm, etc. The tech told me he was having some weird electrical activity, especially when he was nursing and falling asleep, but not seizures.
After all that, Kyle-Anne took us back to her house and made a very nice dinner, then we headed back to the airport. The flight home was good-the airplane was full and we were in a middle seat between a large woman whose butt was partially in my seat, and a young-ish guy. Kellan was hungry and needed to nurse and I'm thinking my boob is going to be on one of these twos lap! The guy agreed to trade me places but I told him I'd try to get the flight attendant to move me first. They did, we got a whole 3 seats to ourselves in the back of the plane!! By the time we got home it was 11 pm, I was exhausted and had a headache from hell. My mom was here and helped me feed Kellan and stuff before she went home. AAhhh-my nice warm bed!
So this afternoon Amanda, the nurse pract., called with EEG results. Again, she had the epileptologist look at it. Again no seizures, even when he did the arm thing. But he does have epileptiform waves-electrical activity that is not normal and puts a person at higher risk for having seizures, but does not necessarily mean they WILL have them. In patients with these waves they do not medicate, they wait and see what happens. This other doc recommended weaning him slowly off the phenobarb (YEA) and see what happens. I honestly would have probably taken him off it even if they hadn't given the OK, but I'm sure glad they did! It will take 3 weeks to wean him, but I'm so happy we can! Now if he has the big episodes of posturing before Jan. 7, then they will set us up for a 3 day EEG when we go back to Denver for our PT appt. Let's hope not. I can't imagine doing that!
Let me just say the NP and doc there are amazing! Very thorough, attentive, compassionate. I wish I would have had the afternoon to explore the hospital and check out the Special Care clinic-the Down syndrome clinic, but there's always January! From what I saw of the hospital, it was great-very colorful and kid oriented, of course. I highly recommend their services if anyone ever needs it. From the valet to the receptionists to the doctors, very exceptional.
I think that about covers it. We will see about working Kellan up for reflux, or just trying zantac when he stops the phenobarb. I hope everyone is well and ready for Christmas! My kids are very excited, esp because their great-grandparents and cousins on Justin's side are coming!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Trip to Denver




Kellan has an appt with the pediatric neurologist Dec 14 in Denver, with an EEG first. I had Justin call and verify the date and times, just to be sure! Kellan and I are flying down on Sunday. I have a friend who lives right in Aurora so she is very kindly picking us up from the airport and letting us stay the night with her. Hopefully Justin will be able to work something out to be able to be there too, we'll see. Kellan is also being baptized on the 13th, with my cousin Wendy and her husband Dave as Godparents.

I am also trying to prepare for Christmas. Shelby REALLY wants a Nintendo DS. I explained to her that they are very expensive and we'd have to see, and she went to her room and gathered up all her money to give to me to use-$17.62!! She was so cute!! I did a little shopping tonight. I found on another mom's blog a list of good toys for baby's with Ds, so I ordered some things off the internet, such an easier way to shop! Justin is gone this week, then home next and then gone again for a week, so it makes shopping time fairly sparse.

Kellan weighed in at 8 lbs 5 oz at his appt on Tues! He got 3 shots, which covered all but 3 of the 2 month recommendation. I opted to wait on the polio, hep B and rotavirus. He'll possibly get the polio and rota at his visit next month.

We got our Christmas tree yesterday. The kids are very excited to decorate it, so we'll start tonight. It's not as much fun without Justin around, seems empty. He got to spend a few days in sunny Key West. He's going to miss both of our work Christmas parties, but will be here for Tobin's Christmas program so that's good.

Check out Kellan's hair in the one pic-it is so curly right after it's washed!