Happy Birthday! Here's a Grand mal for your birthday( #4)

We had a trip to the river planned for Arthur's birthday. The house was all decorated the night before, so to celebrate in the morning.

( Not Arthur, but you get the idea)

This is the tradition in our house.

We woke him up. He had had a good nights sleep.

He lit up when he saw the decorations and came outside to say good morning to everyone as we were packing the car.

I turned around for a second and Bam!

 He was down on the ground......Happy Birthday here's a Grand Mal.

When he would have his Grand Mals, he just checked out. Became stiff as a board and fell to the ground.

Face would turn blue, as he would be barely breathing.

We would talk him through it and after what seemed like an eternity he would start to breathe.

Like always he would need to sleep for a while.

I don't know if it's considered an upside, but he never had any recollection of these events. He still doesn't. It's as if time stands still for him.

"Did I have a seizure?"

In the next 5days he had TWO more Grand mals.

Let me tell you, the river is not the place you want to be during all this.

I made several phone calls to the neurologist. He upped his dose, don't wean his dose, don't give this...blah  blah blah.

All we knew was.........

It was getting worse.

As a family we could barely function.

 Even my 6yr old was always acutely aware of where her big brother was, in fear for him. It was the worst of times thus far.

For Arthur no doubt.

Set the seizures aside, the kid couldn't fart without one of us yelling, " Arthur?"

" I'm FINE!!!," he would yell.

To this day.....when we hear a loud bang or it's just too quiet. You can almost see the

hairs on our arms stand up. And as if Arthur can sense it, he will holler out, " I'm ok."

God love him

Lamictal comes to play

We explained to the neurologist what had happened in Maui. He said obviously Arthur wasn't on the right medication. The seizures seem to be changing.

Ya think?

So he added Lamictal and we were to start weaning Arthur off Trileptal slowly.

It was quite the regimen.

He had another EEG shortly after this. That confirmed the seizures were in more parts of his brain then previously thought.
Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does

I remember Arthur telling the neurologist, " I just don't want to have a seizure on my birthday."

That's not too much to ask is it?