November-

November is Prematurity awareness month. I have stopped trying to do 30 days worth of awareness because I don't have time any more. I guess life use to be a lot less hectic. But I will try and give a few facts and figures and of course, the gift that keeps on giving, just life in our house.

This month has already started off with a bang and with Prematurity at the head front. Sometimes I forget that people don't know that the issues we have all stem from one big thing.

Prematurity.

For the last few months we have been on a medication called Lamictal. It is a anti seizure drug with many uses. We have a very conservative neurologist and he wanted to try it with Tyler. We started with 5mg. Which was a VERY conservative dose. We were to up it every 2 weeks and I always upped it on a weekend so that we could watch for the common rash that can occur. The common rash, is a life threatening rash. You know.. no big deal... ugh! I was worried. But as we went up there was nothing. Not even a spot.

We got up to 25mg 2 times a day. We had a mix up with the pharmacy and with on call doctors and our neurologist and with nurses calling back and it was a big mess. But right after we got back from our vacation we had run out of meds and had some issues getting more. After a run around we had 3 kinds called in. I kept giving him the 25 mg's as we had been until the first of November.

We had noticed a few marks on his body when we moved from lamotrigine ( the generic) to 25mg of actual lamictal, and I took him in. The pediatrician said he felt it was just dry skin and eczema. So we treated it as that. Then I upped the script over the weekend to what the neurologist had actually written on the script. He upped it to 125 mg 2 times a day. And watched for the rash again on Sunday. A few more spots were there so I added more eczema cream. Monday I sent him to school

Monday afternoon the school nurse called and said he had a rash. I kinda of rolled my eyes, but went and got him. She was right and he had a rash. We took him right over to the peds office. And we decided that we would rather talk to the neurologist.

Our neurologist was so upset that he wrote the wrong script. it wasn't that big of a deal and I wasn't horribly mad but he wanted us to be admitted. He was worried it would progress faster and he wouldn't be able to breathe and it would be a bad deal. He also didn't want us in the ER. He called and got us a bed and they called us when the bed was ready. ( I must say, that is MUCH nicer than siting in the ER waiting.)

So we were admitted to Cardon's Children's hospital. I am glad that we were not having to go clear into PCH. We have done all our brain surgeries at Cardon's children ( formerly knowns and Banner Desert Children's hospital) and they have a brand new hospital that is only about 5 years old. We were on the oncology floor so that we didn't catch anything extra. 

Tyler was fine with being at the hospital. He was a good sport. Grayson did really well, but as soon as Dallas got there he was ready to leave and wanted to get out of there. He doesn't really like it and has anxiety about hospitals. 

I stayed like we normally have me do. I made the arrangements for Grayson for the next day and got everyone set up and then we waited. Tyler needed a IV. That is the WORST part of the entire stay. The poor kid. The nurse needed a blood draw with the levels of both our seizure meds and we also needed a IV or a route for meds incase he stopped breathing or had a seizure. 

The blood draw went ok but as they were trying to tape everything for the IV they pulled out the IV and had to re poke. Tyler was crying, I was crying. I was sobbing. He was sobbing. Then we had to splint his arm up so he wouldn't pull everything out. 

We got his normal meds in and we got him to go to sleep and he did a great job of staying asleep. He woke up around 3am and wanted to watch a movie but quickly went back to sleep. I even had a nice little corner to sleep in.

The next day we were able to go home. We were taken off the drug for a few more weeks where we will start again really slowly. We will see the doctor before we start and will probably have a few more appointments with blood draws to see how we are doing.

Having a kiddo that has seizures is scary. Having the drugs going through their body to help them is scary. All because the gift of prematurity is the gift that can keep on giving. Prematurity is not just having a little baby. It is truly is not worth having a baby before it is suppose to be here.