Sleeping With Scorpions

It was a quiet, relaxing, long weekend in the North Georgia mountains minus the morning we  woke up with a couple of  surprise visitors in the room.

Chris was the first to drag himself out of bed and head to the bathroom. I heard him utter, “What is that?! Is that a scorpion?!” Haha. Chris is the boy who cried scorpion (and various other creepy crawlers) to scare me so I just said, “Yeah, right.” He continued to insist there was something in the bathtub, so I got up to look. I didn’t even make it to the door because right there in my path:

Okay, technically this is the one in the tub, but you get the idea.
Okay, technically this is the one in the tub, but you get the idea.

Yes, right in the exact precise path I had used three times in the nearly pitch dark to use the bathroom throughout the night (I blame wine and my 30s). Thank God for my $2 Target flip flops. Sometime during the night a couple of scorpions showed up to party. I don’t CARE that the Internet insists Georgia scorpions aren’t deadly. There are certain things that should never be in a bedroom and scorpions are on the list, right after porcelain dolls and Robert Pattinson (sorry, I just don’t see it). I ended up discovering a couple dead scorpions between my nightstand and bed as well. So began the panicked gathering of items — including one toddler — and move from the bottom floor (selected for misguided idea that Connor might go to bed first ) to the top/third floor.  A hefty climb for such creatures (I choose to believe). We then went through everything in our bags to ensure we had not picked up any stowaways. Chris, for perhaps the first time ever, had not completely repacked and closed his bag, something I always make fun of him for doing every night on any vacation anywhere in the world. He says he likes to be prepared for escape Jason Bourne-style. He claimed he skipped it this time because I always make fun of him, and now here he was checking for scorpions as a result of my ridicule.

But other than that little adventure with wildlife, it was a relaxing trip. I even managed to read an entire book in about a day and a half — something that I used to be able to do all the time, but can barely get through a chapter most of the time these days. I couldn’t believe how fast I tore through this book. I felt like my increasingly dysfunctional brain had woken up in the fresh mountain air. Okay, so it turned out at the end that I had downloaded a Young Adult novel. I knew it had won awards and was also being banned in several places, cementing my desire to read it. I just didn’t realize the places it was being banned were American school libraries. At any rate, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie was pretty good.

I also discovered that Connor, who loves taking baths at home, isn’t down with large Jacuzzi-style tubs. He flipped out and refused to even let me set him down in it, so I had to bathe him in the sink as the regular tub was now hosting a scorpion.

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Connor has really been making great progress lately. Some of the awesome things we’ve seen lately:

He’s very quick to respond to requests more frequently, like “let’s go upstairs,” “time to eat” or “show me______.”

He was able to squat down perfectly, pick up book and stand back up without any support from furniture.

He watched me demonstrate his bowling set and immediately helped me set the pins back up after ONE DEMONSTRATION!

He had taken his bib and put it on the couch. When I told him to come eat, he actually stopped, picked up the bib and brought it with him!

We are still waiting to hear from GW about including him in the Epidiolex trial. Argh. It’s been a month since additional paperwork was submitted.

 

Side note: I’ve previously posted about Accredo Pharmacy (Express Scripts) issues. A couple readers have contacted me about their ongoing issues and have subsequently started an FB group and petition. Please check out those links if you are a dissatisfied patient. While I do believe there are some employees working to help the situation, it appears they are the minority and way too many people are still fighting for their prescriptions. The change isn’t coming fast enough for people who are very sick and depend on these meds. If you are experiencing issues, please e-mail Jennifer Luddy at ExpressRxHelp@express-scripts.com

 

Thanks, Sen. Renee Unterman and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle!

My heart is going a mile a minute and I am trying not to go into a rage. The one thing that made it okay that HB 885 didn’t pass in its final form last session was that by then it had been stripped to an immunity bill. Not a lot of good when you can’t obtain it in your state. But Realm of Caring has decided not to move forward to with their plans to ship Charlotte’s Web UNLESS the state has already passed AT LEAST an immunity bill due to the closer scrutiny they have endured since rolling out this plan. GEORGIA FAMILIES THAT THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO BE ABLE TO GET IT SHIPPED AS EARLY AS NEXT MONTH NOW CAN’T. This is thanks to the despicable actions of SENATOR RENEE UNTERMAN of Buford (who is on the current medical cannabis committee and typically appears to be asleep in meetings–IF she bothers to stay for the whole thing) and LT. GOV. CASEY CAGLE who thought it would be cute to smirk at the grieving families as the session closed without it being allowed to go to a vote at his discretion. Please share the word of what they have done. Georgia families now have to wait for the next session to get a law that will allow them to receive it, when every state around us already can.

From RoC:

“This change will not impact availability for those of you who live in states with clearly defined statutes that allow individuals to possess CBD or low THC, regardless of the specific means by which these products are acquired. For everyone else: we will be seeking clarification from the appropriate agencies in all 50 states in order to determine the legal accessibility and risks of possession of CBD products. To be clear, as soon as we have confirmation from your state authorities that you will be exempt from prosecution, we will ship to you.”

So let them know how you feel:

Sen. Renee Unterman:

Renee.Unterman@senate.ga.gov

121-H State Capitol
Atlanta, GA 30334
Phone: (404) 463-1368
Fax: (404) 651-6767

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle

e-mail here.

240 State Capitol
Atlanta, GA 30334
Phone: (404) 656-5030
Fax: (404) 656-6739

 

You can get Epidiolex in a month if your definition of a month is 210 days to years.

Connor had a 48-hour VEEG a few weeks ago. It was awesome. Instead of waiting weeks and weeks to get into CHOA, we were given the option to use a company that comes to your house and hooks everything up. No hospital! God, it was beautiful. We had received the basic results, but recently had an appointment to discuss it more in depth with his neuro. I’ve been confused in documenting his seizures recently because they often have elements of his typical complex-partials, as well as his tonic-clonics. The EEG confirmed that his CPS (which are in one area of the brain), then generalize to the rest of the brain resulting in clonic seizures. He has a couple hot spots and it seems like every EEG seems to indicates a tradeoff in which is doing the dirty work. This time they all started in the right frontal lobe in the spot where he had surgery when he was four months old. Greeeeaaat.

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This is not to say the surgery was not done well or wasn’t successful. It made a huge difference in reducing his seizure activity. That removed tuber was the reason Connor spent 37 days in NICU at birth. But sometimes the area left that surrounded the tuber can still trigger activity. This means a second surgery to remove more of that area is an option. But the doctor already knew we weren’t interested in exploring that route, not before we try medical cannabis. Connor is currently being considered for a compassionate use trial of Epidiolex, the GW pharmaceutical using extracted CBD.

We’ve been somewhat quiet about that because we already got disappointed once. Despite Rep. Sharon Cooper and Sue Rusche of National Families in Action swearing up and down during  the last Georgia legislative session that we could all get into the clinical trials WITHIN A MONTH! JUST ASK YOUR DOCTOR! it was confirmed quickly what the families already knew. That’s. Bull. Shit.

Many families never had a shot at the trials being conducted by GW. They are focusing on Dravet and LGS. Plus, there is a lot of exclusionary criteria, such as having additional diagnoses. Many tried. Many were told no. One of those children, whose mom was assured she could get it, has since tragically passed away due to a seizure. He didn’t qualify.

Connor only has a shot because there happens to be a compassionate use trial here that isn’t limited to those two diagnoses. But it is very small, very expensive for the doctor and very complicated for a doctor to take part in due to the schedule 1 status of cannabis. So, sure, you can ask your doctor to look into this, but don’t hold your breath. However, the first time we thought we could be included, we found out Connor was excluded by GW because of his age. His doctor has since submitted paperwork to expand the age requirement and we are holding our breath for it to be approved. Sooooo, a month? Let’s see, the legislative session ended in March, so it has been at least seven since we were all told a month. And Connor is damn lucky he even has a shot at taking a part in such a small trial. Cross your fingers for him and us. Everyone else can just move to a legal state, break the law or wait the years it will take for Epidiolex to hit the market (and then hope that formulation is the one that will actually help).

Realm of Caring is also about to start shipping Charlotte’s Web, the the high CBD oil, made famous by CNN’s Weed with Sanjay Gupta. So the CBD options are slowly and fantastically coming our way, but should Connor be one of the cases that requires a different ratio of THC, we will either need to move to a legal state or hope Georgia can pass legislation in 2015 that will let us get what we need. The comfort level with CBD has skyrocketed nationwide, but THC is still demonized despite the fact that it is needed to treat many medical conditions. For now, we are hopeful that Connor will be one of the patients that responds well to CBD without the need for tweaking the ratio. It also remains to be seen how shipping the oil will play out due to the legal gray areas, especially for people in states with no legislation on the books. Certain politicians and people with authority think we should all settle for their word that they won’t prosecute us here. But tell that to Angela Brown in Minnesota who was recently arrested for giving her son CBD oil.

We’ll just be gnawing our fingernails, waiting to hear about the trial. Connor’s been having more seizures at night. His Emfit monitor was malfunctioning the other night (we were advised to adjust some settings which seems to be doing the trick), and now that I’m used to having a monitor that will alert us to convulsive seizures, I couldn’t sleep knowing it wasn’t on. I tried to sleep with Connor in the guest bed, but moving him woke him up and for the next hour and 15 minutes he appeared to be on speed. We played several rounds of “Got Your Nose” Scarface style –him grabbing mine, not the other way around. The bed and my head also made for equally sufficient trampolines. I finally gave up and had to put him back in the crib where he entertained himself for at least another hour. Life with epilepsy, ya’ll.

If you are interested in putting yourself on the wait list for Charlotte’s Web, go here