If time travel were possible...

I don't know that I'd take advantage of it. I think that we all likely have things we would rather have said or done differently, but then where would we be now? How many other things might have changed by altering one tiny thing? I don't know. Maybe it would be cool. Maybe it would be good even. Maybe there would be more updates on this blog. Then again... Maybe not.

I find myself again at the computer after a severe writing drought. I am certain there are too many things to say in a short amount of time as there is no guarantee how long this baby in my lap will be satisfied with her toy, and I'm likely to forget a bunch of stuff too. I am mostly driven to write now because Lucas is having a rough time and my mom encouraged me to share the news and get others on board to pray for him. This seems to be the most efficient way to do that.

This whole school year has been a bit off, I think. He began ok with a new teacher this year (who is wonderful and we love her and her team!!), but I think that having Evangeline has taken a huge toll on me and that has affected everything else. To sum up: After four sleepless nights of labor, she came in a bit of a whirlwind, all naturally after the other two were c-sections. I was beyond exhausted and haven't had much rest since. She had some feeding issues and I had be up most hours in the day to keep on a very regimented feeding schedule. She finally made it back to her birth weight at 6 weeks old (normal is by 2 weeks old). It did take me away from my family and even my own sanity quite a bit though. One (myself being that one) would think that with a third child things would be simple, clear, predictable, manageable, but no. Not in this case. My other two kids had no issues with eating. I didn't have to attempt to force feed anything. They didn't have to have the underside of their tongues lasered. Blah blah blah. She's doing great now, but I am still on the cusp of myself, just beginning to crawl out of the hole. Evangeline will be 6 months old on Friday. I never would have guessed it would be such a recovery. My sweet family, my sweet boy, they have been rather neglected I think.

I don't know how much that weighs in, but I am sure it accounts for something.

Anyway... More recently, Lucas got sick. He had a lot more seizures than normal at school then came home and vomited. Eliana had just been sick two days earlier, so I thought it could be related, but she didn't have a fever. Lucas did.I didn't actually see him vomit. I was bouncing a fussy baby and didn't hear him either. It is entirely possible that he vomited due to having a seizure. (That has happened several times.) Anyway, he ended up a mostly lethargic boy for about a week with temperatures ranging from 99-almost 104. When I brought him to see the pediatrician, he had already been sick 5 days. She gave him some antibiotics in hopes that it was just a bad bacterial infection in his adenoid gland which was swollen so that it looked like he might be harboring a tennis ball in his throat. After 3 days on the antibiotics, the fever was gone and he looked more like he had a ping pong ball in there. He was also staying awake more and acting much more like himself when awake.

Even though he was still sleeping a ton, we started sending him to school again.We sent him all last week. He finished the antibiotics Thursday. I know that they continue working for a while after the Rx is completed, so I wasn't super concerned that he wasn't entirely improved, but as he has continued to sleep around 20 hours a day, I called the doctor's office again. She ordered some blood work and a urinalysis. I am confident that he does not have a urinary tract infection (UTI), but understand the need to rule it out. She wants to check his basic blood panel and also to see if he might have some viral infection such as (this is the number one theory, I think) mono. We won't have the results for a few days, maybe not until early next week, but hopefully the answer will be there.

After we get those results, our next call is very well going to be to the neurologist. As Lucas came out of total lethargy, his seizures have been weird and not good. Being sick can increase/alter seizure activity, so I want to know about the sick first. He has demonstrated in the past 2 weeks at least three new seizure presentations atypical from his norm. He had already begun to have some grand mal seizures with generalized body jerking like most people imagine seizures to appear, but that he has never had before the past 3 months. Now, he is doing all kinds of funky things including seizing in his sleep which hasn't been an issue in the past. (He has them frequently as he is waking or sometimes as he is falling asleep, but not while he is asleep in the night.)

I am tempted to call Dr Altman now (the neurologist), but know that there isn't much to do until we get him healthy. We just increased his medications about 2 months ago since his seizures have increased in severity. I don't know that what is happening with his seizures now is due to his illness (whatever it is) or if it is something else, so we will wait it out a little longer and hopefully have some answers soon.

I need to get to Eliana's school now. My boy is still asleep after his 40+ seizures so far today (a normal day total is less than 30, usually less than 20) and my baby is screaming and especially grumpy and I hope not sick. Thank you all for praying I will try to update when I get his blood work results.

My apologies for the rough writing and likely typos. It's not easy typing mostly one-handed with a fussy baby! Thanks for loving me through it! :)

Blessings.