Story #33: Bike Wreck in South Dakota

Our family took a three-week trip across the country to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. Our son was in high school and Rose was in middle school. It was the perfect time to take such a trip. Our children were mature enough to handle the long hours on the road. I will always remember things about this trip that shaped our future. It really was a defining time for our family. There were obstacles. We handled them as a family.
We drove our truck and tent-camped most of the time. When we arrived at our first camping spot, Flagg Ranch, we got out of the truck to see the most vivid double rainbow I have ever seen. We thought we had lucked in to the perfect campsite. We had two tents, one for sleeping and the other for all our supplies. We did not enjoy a restful time here, however. First, it was hard to sleep due to a park ranger’s loud truck circling the campground all night on bear patrol. When a rain storm came during the second night, we realized that our prime site was a gully. Both tents filled up with water. We were forced to move camp in the dark during the rain. We spent most of the night in the laundry building drying our sleeping bags. Other campers doing late-night laundry let us use up the remaining time on their dryers. This was on my birthday. It was amazing. We were an invincible team.
We moved around quite a bit during this three-week-long trip. I kept hauling an especially heavy bag of Rose’s in and out of the truck. Finally, I asked her what was in there. “ My shoes” she replied. “ How many pairs of shoes did you bring?” I asked. “ seven” she said. “ Why on earth did you bring seven pairs of shoes?” I asked. Her response was “ You told me to.” While she was packing for the trip she asked how many pairs of shoes she should take, I replied “ several,” but Rose heard “ seven.” This was one of those times when we suspected that a hearing aid was in her future.
Our family toured around Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, the Badlands and Devil’s Tower. The only health issue Rose had for most of the trip was hiccups. The hiccup spells would last for long periods of time. It was a side effect of one of her medications. Epilepsy did not show up until we got to South Dakota. We camped at Custer State Park after visiting Mount Rushmore. It was a lovely place, but nowhere near a hospital, or anything else.
Rose and her brother were riding bikes around the campground while my husband and I fixed supper. We saw our son speeding toward us alone and knew that Rose had just had a seizure.
(Pause here. We are in South Dakota, near nothing, letting our daughter with epilepsy ride her bike. Were we crazy? Were we foolhardy, negligent, stupid?  No. We were living our lives. Epilepsy is like a terrorist waiting to attack. You can’t hide from it. It will come when it comes. We refused to keep sitting around waiting for the next seizure. Been there, done that.)

We jumped in the truck and drove to Rose. We hauled her and her bike back to camp. We waited for her to come to. We were concerned about broken bones. She was wearing a helmet, so probably no concussion. She had gravel in her knees. I was scared to do anything until she regained consciousness.
When she came to, we assessed the damages. No broken bones. Then it was time to deal with those knees. This part of the story always gets Rose a little mad. We had to carefully pick gravel out of her knees and bandage them. It was a painful process. She was upset with us that we had not taken care of this task while she was unconscious.

Seizure Mama speaks to parents:

We could have stayed home and waited for the next seizure. We could have forbidden Rose to ride her bike. She could have sat around the campsite watching her brother whiz past. But this is our life. Our family needed adventure and joy. We were going to live our lives to the fullest despite our fears. In those three weeks of wonder, we had one seizure and a lot of hiccups. That could have happened at home, but instead we got to see a spectacular double rainbow, Old Faithful, Mount Rushmore, a grizzly bear, and thousands of bison.
Get out there. Pack this damn epilepsy and go. But leave those seven pairs of shoes at home.

Crunch Time for Rose

I have learned not to worry about Rose.

After twenty-four years of being Seizure Mama, it’s a necessity for my own survival.

I am very aware of the stress level of college students right now.

I used to teach college biology, so I understand that this part of the semester

is a race to the finish line for students.   Actually, there are four or five finish lines.

Add in spring fever, plans for summer trips and  a summer job

and you have a tornado of stress.

We know what that means.

I am thankful that Rose is an experienced student who does not procrastinate.

I count on her to make good decisions.

She is in charge of herself. My worrying will not do anything but harm me.

Still.   I plan to keep very busy these next four weeks.

Just in case I try to wander into the “Worry Maze.”

(That’s what I call it when the “What Ifs” try to sneak into my thoughts.)

STUDENTS with seizures: Take care of yourselves until the semester ends.

Good sleep, good food, good exercise, study in spurts. No 24 hour marathons.

PARENTS:  This is their ball game. Stay in the stands.

Seizure Mama

Happy Easter

This is from my other blog which is usually about gardening.

The fairies only show up on holidays.

Just so you know. Rose was in the bed during the egg hunt.

She says she doesn’t play with fairies. Sigh!

Fairy Egg Hunt with a Hitch

Flower Roberts/Seizure Mama

Blog or Bottle?

I used to feel like I might as well write my Seizure Mama posts on a note,

put it into a bottle and toss it into the sea.

But I knew better than this, so I have to share a story with you.

My other blog, floweralley.org, was a slow starter. That was almost four years ago.

I kept posting to myself for months.

I pretended my best gardening buddy was out there waiting to hear what I was planting.

I pretended they needed to know how to plant and tend their gardens.

I pretended that somebody out there needed me.

Then it happened, ever so slowly.

There were real gardening buddies waiting. They appeared from everywhere.

Every day I shared numbers and locations with my family, when they got home from their busy lives. I mattered. I was a gardening somebody. I was not alone.

Now, there are hundreds of followers.  I know them. I love them.

Now,  “The Flower” hums along with likes and comments. I hear from friends every day.

I am telling this for those of you that I follow who only have a double digit of followers right now. (Seizure Mama only has 16.)

DO NOT GIVE UP!

I read your words. You are saying something important. Really important.

Way more important than gardening.

You are doing a good job. I am sincere in this.

I am older. I have been where you are.

It will get better. You will get noticed.

Folks will hear your words, if they are true and heart-felt.

If I am following you, I consider your posts are worth my limited time.

No bottles needed.

Keep posting Amanda, Yaelle, Laura, Alec, Charlotte, Maria, Emma, Kevin, Clare, Dave and David.

(If I left out your name, forgive me. I haven’t finished my coffee yet.)

We are a team. Epilepsy people need us. We got this!

Everybody’s Mama/Flower

 

Story #32: The Cyst and the Scissors

We went back to our favorite medical complex for a kidney stone recheck about a year after the initial stone was found. At that point, Rose had been off drug 6Z. She had spent months drinking lemonade made from fresh lemons. She had been through various tests for conditions that might have contributed to the stone issue. All tests were normal. The new drug 7Z was not as great as 6Z, but that is a different story. We expected the “all clear” from the urologist after this visit.
Rose and I went back to a room for the ultrasound. Her dad stayed in the waiting area to read and nap. We knew this would take a while. Rose got comfortable on the bed as she was slathered with warm gel. Another spa treatment with a hefty price tag. The technician began rubbing her wand around Rose’s midsection. I watched the gray screen of the monitor. The young lady would rub Rose as she looked at the screen and click on the keypad to take pictures and measurements. Rub and click, rub and click. Pause.
The technician excused herself to us. She returned with her supervisor. The two discussed things quietly as they pointed to the screen. They asked Rose to roll to a different position. Rub and click. Rub and click. The first young lady left and brought a doctor back with her. There were more quiet discussions in front of the screen.
About this time Rose’s sleepy dad appeared in the room with us. Someone had gone out to the waiting room to get him. We knew something was coming. More stones? Really? Making all that lemonade for nothing?
No, it was not a stone. A mass had been found on her ovary during the procedure. The bad news was, it was about the size of a tin can. The good news was it looked hollow and was probably harmless. This is when Rose’s dad and I looked at each other and laughed. Crazy right? The poor child’s parents are laughing like a joke had just been told.
Surgery was scheduled for the coming weeks. Same hospital. We hoped it was a benign mass. We hoped that the surgery would not cause damage to the ovary. There would be a big scar. No matter.
We were once again among other parents with sick children. The other children had conditions that were much more serious than a cyst. We felt blessed to be in a good place to get this taken care of. We would get through this.
Rose’s dad and I took turns staying with Rose. We would see the familiar faces of other parents in the elevators and hallways. We lugged supplies and laundry in rolling baskets and colorful luggage. You could recognize other caregivers by their luggage and tiredness, sleep-deprived sentries silently going about their duties.
Rose saw the surgeon again for a recheck before she could be released. She lay on the examining table as he poked at her incision site. There was some swelling. He opened a new pair of scissors and made a hole in the stitched line in Rose’s abdomen to let the wound drain as Rose watched with fascination. That is the kind of patient she was. Watching and learning. Patient and student all in one.

Seizure Mama speaks to parents:

You do not need to look far to find someone who has more problems than you do. Every time we went into a hospital, we left feeling lucky. Remember this if you feel the need to have a “pity party” with a stranger while in a hospital.
As I was loading Rose’s clothes and games out of the hospital, I rode down in the elevator from the pediatric floor with another mother. She was obviously moving her child out, also. We had passed each other numerous times in the previous days. I looked at her luggage and exclaimed, “Hooray, we both get to go home.” “We are headed to hospice.” was her reply.

Story #31: Shoveling Sand and the Stones

Kidney stones in a ten-year-old girl are quite unusual, but this was an unusual girl. The kidney stone that blocked Rose’s ureter was surgically removed. The other was later pulverized by lithotripsy. Rose was sent to yet another specialist in another city. This urologist happened to be at the medical complex where Rose was now a regular as an epilepsy patient. We joked that she was like the character “Norm” in the sitcom Cheers when she arrived, “Everybody knows her name.” Our little sickly celebrity.
Rose’s trips to the specialist included bringing a jug of urine which had been collected with the help of a big “plastic hat” in the toilet. The jug was kept in the refrigerator. Urine in the refrigerator, hats in the bathroom – ours was not a usual home.
The chemical content of the removed stones would give us some indication of what might be causing them. We  would learn later that the culprit was our latest beloved drug 6Z. We wanted to keep Rose on this drug because it was actually working. Could we keep the drug, despite its causing the stones?
The urologist’s response to that question was that we would end up “shoveling sand against the tide.” He described the stint that had been removed after her kidney stone surgery as being completely encrusted with crystals. The stones were definitely a side effect of her medication. Seizures or stones. Those were our choices.
Now that we knew the cause of the kidney stones, we had to go back to her new neurologist to pick out a new epilepsy medication. Rose was weaned down on drug 6Z and drug 7Z was added to her daily cocktail. Would this new drug control her seizures? Would it bring new side effects? We never dreamed what would happen next. We were getting used to expecting the unexpected, but even I got blown away by this next event.

Seizure Mama speaks to parents:

We were way out of our league by this point. I knew nothing about kidney stones. I did not understand how an anti-epilepsy drug could cause them. It has taken me years of reading to know what I know, which is still very little. Drugs contain the compounds that perform certain functions and other parts that are in the mix for other reasons. I think of them as dirty drugs. The part that stops the seizures is the good part. The part that causes the side effects is the dirty part. You can keep asking questions of the specialists, but you probably won’t understand the answers. Do not get frustrated with them or yourself. Sometimes you just have to trust these folks that have spent years studying something that has just appeared on your radar.

Story #30: Mary and her Damn Lamb

Rose was in the hospital for about a week due to her kidney stones. I stayed with her most of the time, only going home to shower and do laundry. Days spent in the hospital are trying, but the nights are torture.
I had to sleep in a malfunctioning recliner beside Rose’s bed. It would remain stretched out if I kept my back straight and applied force against it. If I shifted the wrong way during the night, it shot back to the upright position, giving me quite a rude awakening.
The other issue that prevented a good night’s sleep was the nurse parade that came in at random times to check the IV machine. If Rose moved and pinched the IV line, an alarm would sound to summon a nurse.
None of these irritations compared with “Mary and her Damn Lamb.” Across the hall was a patient who was supposed to be confined to his, so the bed alarm in his room was turned on. Every time he got up, the bed alarm played the tune of the children’s nursery rhyme “Mary had a Little Lamb” to alert the nurses that the patient was being non-compliant.
Rose’s room was on the pediatric floor of the hospital. This story might make you smile, but there is a sinister twist to this tale.
While trapped in the hospital for days, I would sneak out of Rose’s room while she slept to see different scenery and search for snacks. During one of my silent forays down the hallway, I heard the nurses discussing this patient across the hall.
He was not a child. The hospital had no room for him in the psych ward. Until a space opened up for him upstairs, he was to wait in the room across the hall from my Rose.
So every time I would hear “Mary Had a Little Lamb” I would wake up and watch Rose’s door prepared to catapult myself from my dysfunctional recliner to protect my Rose from the psycho.
Sleepless Seizure Mama speaks to parents:
Staying in a hospital for long periods of time can send you to the edge of the “crazy cliff.” My husband and I learned to take turns for overnight stays. I packed my little blanket and sleep mask. It is almost impossible to get good sleep in a hospital. The nurse parade during the night is a necessary evil. Sometimes I would awaken to see a concerned nurse looking at me crying in my sleep, something I did not allow myself during the day.
There are far worse ways to be awakened in a hospital however, like when a “Code Blue” announcement is sounded. My heart would pound for minutes after these alarms, as I prayed with all my heart for the patient in crisis and the brave professionals rushing to try to save them.

Story # 29: Halloween in the Hospital

On October 27th Rose started vomiting. It continued for hours despite applications of the anti-nausea gel to her forearm. I finally packed her up and headed to the pediatrician’s office. He did not seem as alarmed as I was. He asked what I thought should be the next course of action. I replied that the next time Rose vomited, we were going to the emergency room. I knew something was really wrong with her. My “mama gut” was screaming. This doctor had known us for years now. He knew Rose’s history and he knew I was not an alarmist. He decided to send her on to the hospital to be admitted.
We were quickly checked into a room. The nurses tried to start an IV. They could not get a needle in because Rose was so dehydrated. The IV supervisor was called to get one started. It was at this point that I realized that Rose’s face looked wrong. Her lips were too big and her eyes looked sunken. This is why I felt panicked. Her face was deflated due to dehydration.
The vomiting continued. They asked Rose her pain level on a scale of 1 – 10. She calmly replied 8. The nurses were startled by her response. She had not mentioned being in pain. She remained stoic through all the poking, prodding and x-rays. The suspected culprit was an intestinal blockage. To everyone’s surprise, two kidney stones were discovered instead. One was blocking a ureter. It needed to be removed immediately. A local urologist was called to perform the surgery on Halloween Eve.
When Rose heard that she was going to miss trick-or-treating, she broke down. This brave ten-year-old patient boo-hooed like a baby. The nurses felt so sorry for her that candy and gifts began to show up in her room. Folks at our church were alerted. A giant bag of assorted candy was collected from the Trick-or-Trunk event. She got more candy than ever.

Seizure Mama speaks to parents:

First, I would like to say that you must trust your “mama gut” even when you do not consciously know why you are alarmed. That instinct is like your hard drive. Even though the information is not on your “screen of consciousness” you still get a vibe of alarm. Although I was not medically trained to know the signs of dehydration, I recognized that something was physically wrong with Rose.

It was later determined that one of Rose’s anti-seizure medications had caused the stones.  That medication was discontinued.  She has had no more kidney stones in the sixteen years since this incident.

I would like to add that the following Halloween, Rose dressed up like a witch and delivered packs of candy to the pediatric floor of that hospital. The nurses were thrilled. They, of course, got to share in the spoils. Rose remembered how sad she was to miss last Halloween. She wanted to make sure the kids stuck in the hospital this Halloween did not feel forgotten. This is what the seeds of pain can do. They can grow into love and bloom with kindness.

Fixing Zero

I check our stats at least once each day. I take a deep breath before I click.

I do not want to see a zero. I have worked too hard for a zero.

Zero means no one sees it. Zero means no one has been helped.

I hate ZERO!

So every time there is a zero, I go phishing.

I type in “seizures” or “epilepsy” and search for a place to drop our link.

How does this work?  It doesn’t.

You see I do not want other bloggers to feel the way I feel when I have a zero.

So I go and read their blogs and make comments.

That makes me feel like I have done something.

I may still have a zero, but I do not feel like a zero.

Seizure Mama

 

Story #28: The Epilepsy Monitoring Unit

It was past time to put all the cards on the table. We needed answers about where these seizures were coming from, why they were occurring, and what triggers were unleashing them in Rose’s brain. It seemed we had been trying to put together a puzzle without looking at the picture on the box. Would a stay at an EMU finally reveal the whole picture? Could we handle the whole picture when we got it?
Would this epilepsy monitoring unit give us the answers we needed? Would the electrodes finally locate the source of these electrical storms inside Rose’s brain? I felt like these hundreds of seizures were clearing pathways through Rose’s brain, so that the seizures could go farther and faster, like there was some kind of cumulative effect.
I was truly afraid of weaning her off her medications. Would these seizures be allowed to run unhindered through her young brain, or were they doing that all ready? All we knew was we were in the right place to get answers. We had faith in this hospital and its doctors and nurses. That in itself was a great comfort to us, even to Rose. We needed expert help and now we were closer to getting it. Risks or not, this was no life for Rose. She needed fun instead of fear.
The technicians that glued the electrodes to her head treated it like a spa treatment. Rose emerged with a lovely, long ponytail of colorful wires. She felt pleased and pampered. A gauze cap had to be wrapped over her head to keep the electrodes in place when she lay down. No matter, her flowing ponytail was a hit. The other end of the electrodes were hooked to a box in a pack that she wore allowing her mobility.
During our week-long stay, Rose had six seizures. It took four days of weaning down on her medications to get them started. Those last days were scary. Once the data was collected, some medications were returned, but on low dosages. I knew these dosages were too low. I showed one of the doctors our chart which showed that Rose had experienced a long and strong seizure on the same particular mix and dosages that Rose was leaving on. The dosages stayed low so a long seizure followed shortly after we arrived home. Emergency medications were used. A call was made back to the EMU, dosages were then raised.
I am a doctor’s nemesis. I am the mom with the clipboard and pen. Once during our EMU stay, a senior doctor came into Rose’s room with a group of medical students. I rose from my chair as they entered, clipboard and pen in hand. “Oh no!” slipped from the doctor’s lips as he saw me. I stood in the circle with the young doctors as they discussed Rose’s case. Mama and the medical students formed a circle around her bed, all of us trying to learn;  they to save the world, me to save my daughter.

Seizure Mama speaks to parents:

Weaning off medications is a scary necessity in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit process. Without the medications masking the brain’s electrical activity the electrodes can detect what is happening. In the Phase I process the electrodes are glued to the outside of the skull. These sensors show the brain’s activity as squiggly lines on an EEG. These external electrodes cannot detect activity deep in the brain. This Phase I process lets your team see what is going on in the brain as the patient is doing different activities, including sleeping. Do not be afraid of the electrodes and glue. The glue does wash out eventually. You may need to use an oily substance, like mayonnaise, to remove it.
Do not expect answers right away. The team must meet together and discuss the results before considering the next course of action. This may take weeks. Be patient. Take comfort that more trained professionals are trying to help your child.