I’ve posted before about Hunter, an eight-year-old boy from Georgia, whose family relocated to Colorado several months ago to try and treat his severe epilepsy with cannabis oil. Previously 12 FDA-approved meds, the ketogenic diet and a surgically-implanted VNS had failed to make him seizure free. He was not a candidate for brain surgery. Some of his meds made him sleep constantly or scream. Here is an update.
This non-psychoactive oil has made an incredible difference in Hunter’s quality of life. According to Mom, “His bad seizures (myclonic clusters) would happen almost daily before and last 5-10 minutes. NOW, he is averaging one a week and they are under 2-3 minutes. In the month of February he has had 4 so far. This is HUGE! His quick seizures used to last upwards of 30 seconds and happen 10-20 times a day. After a month or so we were still seeing them every day and several times a day but they were literally seconds and half the time we couldn’t tell if he was actually having a seizure. Now, after 3 months, we are hardly seeing ANY!”
But in fairness, we must address the side effects of this medication. Sure, it might help kids with terrible seizure disorders that are damaging their brains and ability to function and learn, but surely there are SIDE EFFECTS? Well, you’re right. There are. Here are the side effects Hunter is experiencing.
1. Increased eye contact and the ability to maintain eye contact.
2. He no longer needs Miralax and daily suppositories to go to the bathroom.
3. He is relaxed. His fists no longer remain in a clenched position with his nails digging into his palm, making his hands bleed.
4. After eight years of only being able to sleep on his back, he can now roll to his side and sleep in a new position.
5. He now rides the school bus since Mom no longer worries about him having a bad seizure on the bus.
6. There have been no calls from the school for EMS.
But I guess a few side effects are the price a parent must pay for giving their child quality of life. That and leaving your entire life behind in another state.
I guess blogging really can be therapeutic. After I posted Friday about our trip to Birmingham regarding the ketogenic diet, I just didn’t feel right. I had a tightness in my chest that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. Anxiety? I couldn’t stop obsessing over our appointment with the neurologist and how she just wasn’t on the same page at all. I guess it’s true what people say about going with your gut. I looked back over my correspondence with CHOA. I had never cancelled our March appointment just in case. Connor is already responding so well to the tweaks in his diet that aren’t even the full-blown MAD or ketogenic diet. I went upstairs to find Chris and said, “you know…we still have the CHOA appointment, and the nutritionist said she could help me start MAD at home…” And within seconds it was confirmed that neither of us were comfortable moving forward in Alabama with that neurologist. So I emailed the nutritionist that we would be sticking with CHOA and I am waiting to here from her.
Yesterday I attended the first committee hearing on HB 885. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t what I got. It started late as the morning session had gone long. Some members came in late to the hearing as they were at other meetings that overlapped. Paige Figi — Charlotte’s mom featured in the Sanjay Gupta special — flew in with Joel Stanley from Realm of Caring to testify about what they are doing in Colorado and the success they are having. They are in the process of getting FDA-approval and they are doing studies, but it is a time consuming process and children with severe seizure disorders don’t have time to wait. They explained that they are a heavily regulated industry. They also said they now have a waiting list of over 2,000 people nationally and internationally, hoping they will be allowed access.
Dr. Mike Green then testified and shared that the Medical Association of Georgia supports the bill. Dr. Smith testified about his experiences having a child with a seizure disorder (Doose syndrome) and the awful side effects that can come with seizure medications. He and Dr. Green also shared about the Epidiolex drug trials that are going on. Epidiolex is manufactured by GWPharma using CBD as the active ingredient. Dr. Smith tried to get his child into one of the studies, but they were full. Dr. Flamini also testified. He is the neurologist to many of the kids whose parents are fighting for this. He is actually the mysterious neurologist I frequently refer to in this blog. He is very supportive of CBD studies and is applying for Investigational New Drug status (IND) so that he can work with Epidiolex in his office. It is a very lengthy, difficult process to work with a schedule 1 substance, but even if he is approved he is very limited in how many people can use it. Though he was testifying in support of HB885, he is actually excluded by the bill because he has a private practice. It would only be available via research hospitals.
I also want to point out that Epidiolex is in trial phase and not yet FDA approved. It has been granted orphan status, which speeds things up, but we’re still talking years. May I remind you that vigabatrin was not FDA -approved in the U.S. until 30 years after the first trials. Ahem.
Several parents shared their heartbreaking stories. Janea Cox shared about Haleigh, pleading with the committee not to let her daughter die. Aaron Klepinger shared about the amazing success their son Hunter is having in Colorado and how badly the family wants to come home. One dose stopped him from clenching his fists so tightly that his hands would bleed. Jonathan Jiles shared about his son Kason’s battle with Ohtahara syndrome. Sgt. Chris Clark, a 26-year veteran of the police department shared about his family and how his wife and child are in Colorado for treatment while he remains behind to provide income and insurance. He also shared that his son had a brain surgery that caused a stroke. I wished they could have had more time, but were all rushed because of time constraints and the impending bad weather.
Then came the oppositional speakers with lengthy presentations. Sue Rusche from National Families in Action opened with a YouTube video she took of an advertisement for Indispensary in Colorado. Dispensaries are where you can buy marijuana products. It took me a while to ascertain her point, but it seemed to be, hey, look at all these recreational marijuana products. These are available in the same place as where some of these Colorado parents are obtaining their child’s medication. It was a long, slow video with lots of silent footage of recreational products. Personally, I was shocked it was allowed to play out in full considering the rush for time and that testifying parents had to talk quickly. It was also quickly pointed out by Rep. Kaiser that it was irrelevant. Georgia is not Colorado. This is not what we are doing here. That is simply a place in Colorado where medicine may be picked up, but we wouldn’t have that here. We are interested in a non-psychoactive oil that can’t get you high only ONLY; recreational is not on the table. We want an oil form, not buds. Rusche was clearly not supportive of products such as Charlotte’s Web which has saved many lives in Colorado. She pushed the Epidiolex trials repeatedly and insisted it was not hard to get, that any doctor can apply for IND status and have it in 30 days. This was after Dr. Flamini already testified that it was a difficult process. The doctors behind her were also shaking their head as she spoke. But no matter what was asked, she insisted that Epidiolex, courtesy of GW pharmaceuticals was the only suitable option. She was so insistent that one of the reps eventually questioned whether her organization received money from GW. A representative then asked her if Epidiolex is so easy to get, why aren’t these parents doing that? “I wish they would!” was her response. And at this time, I ask you to recall above where I mentioned that one of the testifying doctors tried to get it for his kid and couldn’t. At that point, Rep. Peake asked her, ‘Would you tell Aaron Klepinger to stop giving Hunter Charlotte’s Web and get in line for Epidiolex?” She said no.
Some doctors from CHOA spoke. While they have reservations, they are very interested in possibilities of CBD oil. Then Rick Allen of the Georgia Drug and Narcotics Agency spoke of the challenges of getting it here due to it’s classification as a schedule 1 substance — no doubt a major hurdle. He said that where we stand, something like Charlotte’s Web cannot be brought into the state legally. University of Mississippi is the only place permitted by law to supply as part of research projects.
Then came, what was for me, some of the most disturbing testimony. Karen Tinker gave lengthy testimony as a mother of a son with epilepsy. I was confused at first. Why was she at the end rather than with the other parents? Why have I never seen her or heard her name before? As it turned out, she wasn’t testifying for the bill. She was testifying against it. She started out with a similar story. Many meds failed her son and he recently received the VNS implant, which she acknowledged comes with it’s own dangers, and wasn’t guaranteed to solve the problem. She talked about her methods of evaluating treatment options for her son, and said that she had chosen not to use Onfi because of potential side effects (a med that I felt we had to try for Connor). But she stated that CBD oil did not have the research to back it. That we needed wait to several years to see what studies would say. She likened the passing of the bill to opening Pandora’s Box and said she worried that all the positive headlines about marijuana would lead her teenage son to try recreational pot. After the fact, I saw her Linked In profile. It turns out she owns a company that provides mobile drug testing of employees to companies. She doesn’t seem to differentiate between medicinal and recreational.
It was heartbreaking that a parent of a child with seizures would do this to other parents. Especially after Janea Cox had cried and shared that Haleigh has stopped breathing 56 times in the last month.
I respect the right of every parent to choose the course of action for their child. Not every parent is comfortable with medical cannabis at this point and I respect some would not opt to use it. Just as Tinker chose not to use Onfi, we did choose to use it. I do not respect someone that tells others they shouldn’t do something that could save their child’s life. I am so lucky that Connor’s situation is not as dire as the situation of the testifying parents. It’s cruel to try and stand in the way of something that could save their lives.
After that, a couple doctors testified that had been recruited by Rusche. I’ll be honest. I didn’t hear much of what they had to say because I was still in shock over Tinker’s testimony. At that point the hearing had hit three hours and it was an hour and a half past when it was supposed to end. The remainder of speakers were asked to return to the next hearing.
I’m not sharing all my thoughts at this time on the hearing in the blog. If interested, I can talk more one-on-one. I will provide more detail at a later date. All I can say is that yesterday was an eye-opening experience.
You were sort of close. Atlanta froze over creating a hell of sorts yesterday when Rep. Allen Peake dropped the bill HB 885 Haleigh’s Hope, named for Haleigh Cox, diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, who is still in the hospital. It now needs to go through committee in the house and if it passes, then get passed to the senate, and at that point will go to Governor Deal to be signed. Some basic details of the current version are:
The bill will be tightly restricted and very regulated, managed by a doctor, administered orally in oil or capsule form. Seizure disorders have been added to an existing law that includes cancer and glaucoma. (A previous 1980 law had allowed for controlled use for cancer and glaucoma, but due to stipulations on how it could be obtained, never actually benefitted anyone because they couldn’t get it.)
I’m very excited to see progress being made that could potentially benefit Connor and so many others. I’m anxious to find out the nitty gritty on exactly how and when we will be able to obtain it if passed.
Of course, this bill is met with controversy, and I don’t even mean the anti-any legalization whatsoever groups. People who want to treat medical conditions not expressly named in this bill are expressing their dismay. Another point of contention is the limited allowance of THC-where exactly we stand on that is unclear. The CBD oils are very high in CBD with very low THC and have great medicinal value. Since THC is the psychoactive component, this aspect gives great comfort to people who would otherwise oppose it. However, THC also has medicinal benefits. Some of the people being treated with CBD oil are supplementing with THC when the CBD oil alone is not enough. I don’t want to get too technical because this has been a learn-as I-go-along type of experience, and I do not want to unintentionally spread misinformation.
But this is a start. I’m hoping we are headed toward access to all components that could help my child. If you are dealing with a medical issue that would benefit from cannabis, I highly recommend you contact your legislators with your story. I hope we are on a path to this being an option for everyone that needs it. Georgia is an exceptionally conservative state that just let adults make the choice to buy alcohol on Sundays and cannabis has been demonized incorrectly for decades. Miracles don’t happen overnight, even if they should. Getting this far required the persistence of some incredible parents that knocked on doors at the capitol and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Atlanta’s Snowmageddon (Snowpocalypse? Can’t decide) that hit yesterday and had kids and teachers stuck at school and on buses, people sleeping in Home Depots, shelters, gas stations, strangers’ homes and in their cars on highways, while other people had their 20 minute commutes turn to nine hours only to ditch their cars and trek home on foot dominated the news. However, there was a front-page story about the bill in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution that continued to page A9 featuring none other than the little man himself.
I am but a mere soul in the mud trying to help push the truck, but credit for the amazing momentum of the last few weeks goes to a group of parents at the steering wheel. I have had the pleasure of getting to know some of them if only online. For every e-mail I send or person I try to persuade, they have done 100x that with face-to-face meetings, contacts to the media and bringing legislators that were once wary over the line to full support.
Please also check out Kason Jiles’ story. Connor was once in that position, stuck in the NICU with dozens of seizures every day.
All of this has made realize how lucky we are. Connor’s seizures are not good and are certainly a factor in his physical and speech delays — and there is always the fear of SUDEP or status seizures, but some of these parents are literally trying to save their kids’ lives. Not long-term — I mean NOW. As in they face very immediate life and death issues–each day they wait is a life time. Where we have managed to get Connor down to roughly three clinical seizures a day, their kids are seizing constantly. They have exhausted traditional options. FDA-approved meds have FAILED, the ketogenic diet has FAILED, the VNS implant has FAILED, brain surgery has FAILED or is not an option. Next month we start Connor on the ketogenic diet. In many ways I feel like that is our last option. Sure there are more meds we could try, but we’ve already tried seven.
I am very optimistic about the diet. I’ve done some tweaking to his diet in preparation for the real thing and I really think it has helped. His seizures are mostly 30 seconds and under and now only seem to happen upon waking in the morning and at nap time. But keto may not stop them 100 percent or it may not work forever — not to mention the incredible difficulty and lack of nutrition on the diet. Connor deserves every possible option on the table. All of these kids do.
Many people remain locked in an image of bongs and rolling joints. This is not how children would take this medication. It is an oil that they would take under their tongue and with food. They don’t stumble around high. There are other forms as well, but that is the one I am most familiar with. No child is going to be smoking.
President Jerry Luquire of the Georgia Christian Coalition has spoken against us with the media and to his followers. A number of parents began to e-mail and comment on their Facebook page pleading to be heard. All of our (polite) comments were deleted from the page and several people were blocked from commenting further. This was one of his responses to a parent. I have in no way altered it other than to remove the mom and child’s name:
Ms [name removed to protect her privacy], thank you for writing me on behalf of [child].
As a husnad, father and grandfather of children who are free of medical problems, I feel guilty somehow that I have been so blessed when you and others face such unspeakable pain. I am truly sorry. Our prayers join yours and others that those who can change the course of medical treatment will do so.
[Mom] if the law were changed in Georgia tomorrow, there would be no relief to situations where cannabis is required. The change that will help your son must be made at the federal level. There is no action we can take to bring about that change by enacting a permissive law in Georgia.
I was offered this observation Monday by a parent who said his son was doing fine with a marijuana treatment, using his term, and he felt he no more broke the law by buying it illegally than if Georgia make it ok, but the feds did not and he bought it then.
You make a compelling case for federal law change…please do not give up.
In Christian compassion
Jerry Luquire 706 366 8298 You are free to share this
response as you see fit.Co, thank you for writing me on behalf of [child].
Interesting. So his argument is the conflict of state laws and federal laws. This to him is more important than saving lives. Not to mention, we have already seen that the feds are making the choice not to interfere in other states. So does this mean he would support us if the feds wanted to make a change? I can’t help but suspect he would not. But this is a great way to oppose a potentially life-saving/changing medication and try not to look like a bad guy. Luquire made quite a name for himself battling Sunday alcohol sales and trying to prevent it from going to a vote by citizens, even though this was a local county and city issue. So I find this quote from a 2011 news article very interesting:
To my readers that haven’t yet done so, please contact your legislators and Governor Deal letting them know that you want sick people to have access to medical cannabis. This is being done at the state level, so we’re not asking you to contact your representatives in D.C., but the ones right here making Georgia law.
If you aren’t sure who your local legislators are, find out here.
At the end of my previous post, I included an open letter written by one of the parents leading this cause. He includes hard data on how his son has been helped since they were left with no choice but to leave their family and go to Colorado. If you missed it, please check it out.
This is Hunter and he is eight years old. I met his mom, first at a music class she attended with her younger child, then I saw her again at the pool where Hunter and Connor both receive aquatic therapy. One day I realized I hadn’t seen them in quite some time, only to meet mom and dad again in a Facebook group. They had moved to Colorado to obtain treatment for Hunter after several seizure medications, VNS and the ketogenic diet failed him.
They have finally found an effective treatment in the form of medical marijuana–20 minute seizures are down to two minutes and he went six days straight seizure free for the first time in eight years –but now they can’t come home to Georgia. And they aren’t the only ones. Many families have left everything behind to move to Colorado to obtain access to medical marijuana. Charlotte’s Web is a well-known strain featured in the CNN special with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and created by Realm of Caring. It is low in THC so the kids do NOT get high, and it is in the form of an oil, so they do NOT smoke it. Sometimes people even have to leave other legal states so that they can get the form of marijuana their child needs. New Jersey is such an example. Though medical marijuana is legal, Gov. Chris Christie has made it exceptionally difficult for families to get what they need.
From the Huffington Post: “See this is what happens. Every time you sign one expansion, then the advocates will come back and ask for another one,” the governor proclaimed during a press conference from his statehouse office. “Here’s what the advocates want: they want legalization of marijuana in New Jersey. It will not happen on my watch, ever. I am done expanding the medical marijuana program under any circumstances. So we’re done.”
Remember that as he sets his sights on the Oval Office.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal also opposes it.
These families want to come home. And I don’t want to one day face the same decision they have if we can’t get Connor’s seizures under control. If you are interested in the legalization of medical marijuana in Georgia, please check out this group.
I can’t believe Christmas is over already. Seems like it was Halloween a week ago. Connor had a good Christmas, despite some not so fantastic developments beforehand.
I blogged previously about his bout with bronchitis and I mentioned that instead of an increase in seizures, which can happen in times of illness, he had a major decrease. Turns out many other parents have experienced this when illness causes their child to stop eating much. Hopefully, that’s a sign that the ketogenic diet will work for him. Did I say ketogenic and not modified Atkins diet? Yes, you read that correctly and I’ll come back to that.
Turns out, a week and a half almost seizure free wasn’t worth it because once he recovered and started eating again, they came back with a vengeance. They were longer, rougher and he was wobbly for a bit afterwards. His seizures for the last several months have topped out at 30 seconds. Now they were lasting two minutes. And they looked…odd. I sent a video to his neurologist who called me with the %&*# news that Connor’s seizures had morphed into tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizures. Now, I knew they were rougher than the partials we have always dealt with, but you can read descriptions all day long of seizure activity and it still may not look exactly as expected. So they were rougher, but still not as rough as the grand mals I envisioned. I was shocked and not shocked at the same time.
So damn. A new seizure type. Common in TSC, but we had been lucky to go so long without that turn of events considering Connor’s seizures started at birth. Until now, other than partials, his only other confirmed seizure type was infantile spasms. I have sometimes suspected absence seizures, but those are tough to peg.
Shortly before this development, his neuro had changed his mind about the recommended course of action. As I mentioned in another post, we were trying to get him into the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite or Egleston ketogenic diet clinic for consultation regarding modified Atkins and seizure control. They couldn’t get us in until March, four months out from when we sent his records over. It took a month for them to even make the appointment, and our neuro was quite perturbed that after a month of trying to get started we had gotten nowhere and had three more months to wait. He did not say this, but my guess is that he was on board with MAD when he thought we’d be able to test out the efficacy quickly. Now, that we are facing several more weeks of seizures, I suppose he wants to take a more hardline approach. With the appearance of tonic-clinics, I’m very much on board now, whereas before — I was NOT thrilled with the idea of keto.
So we have continued our efforts to get in earlier at CHOA and they also referred us to Johns Hopkins and UAB in Birmingham, which also has a TSC clinic. Johns Hopkins also can’t get us in until March. So far UAB is the winner with a date of Feb. 4. So unless we get a miracle at CHOA, we will drive two hours to Alabama, which is preferable to flying to Baltimore.
In the meantime, we have upped his vigabatrin, something we were trying to avoid. His seizures shortened again and were less severe, though they still leave him wobbly. Most days he’s had one. Until two days ago when he had five. Yesterday he had one that left his right arm almost useless for 30 minutes after.
But on a happier note, Connor sure cleaned up at Christmas. We opened gifts at home in the morning with Chris’ parents who were in town, then headed to my parents for the afternoon and dinner, then stopped by Chris’ brother’s house where Connor went hog wild with his 10-year-old cousin Cody and their dog.
We can now start a family band, hopefully less annoying than Laughing Pizza, with Connor’s new keyboard, drum and xylophone. I continue to live vicariously through him by getting him a tent for his playroom (I can’t wait until he’s old enough for the Power Wheels I never got in the 80s). One of the gifts my parents gave him is the rideable airplane from Cars. He likes it until he accidentally triggers the mechanism that makes it light up and make noise. He takes off like a bat out of hell, so I suppose I will remove the batteries for the time being so he can play with it without fear of being eaten or chopped up or whatever it is he’s afraid of. He otherwise adores spinning the propeller.
The Christmas gift exchange between Chris and me was rather perilous…for me. Chris is not a “stuff” person. If it were up to him, we’d have a lot more bare square footage in this house. He always makes a list, and I always feel compelled to find at least one thing not on the list. However, I’ve completed his collections (that I started) of Chicago sports team Mr. Potato Heads and garden gnomes. I knew he wanted the Lego Rockefeller Center for his office, so score! An off-list item. Except when I got home, I made the mistake of asking for the updated Christmas list since I had only looked at his November birthday list. Guess what he had added? Dammit. So I gave it a shot by picking him up a button-up shirt at Belk. I stuck to his beloved Izod, but veered from his color palette. I knew there was a 95 percent chance of exchange. Mine’s on the left, his exchange is on the right.
The hubs prefers a more subtle earthy hue…unless the Bears are playing.
For me he did a good job with three necklaces he picked out on his own, in addition to some Loft clothes I picked. He also got silly with this, which surprised me because my excessive mug collection drives him bonkers.
He also picked up a cow chip clip that moos loudly, as I am obsessed with black and white cows and hold to a belief that if I can get it out of the pantry with no one knowing, the calories don’t count. Massive backfire on his part. The thing is so sensitive, that even after being buried in drawer, open the fridge — MOOOOOOO!. Pour some milk — MOOOOOOOO! Turn on the sink — MOOOOOOOO! Then on New Year’s Eve it went completely batsh** and wouldn’t stop mooing even when we were sitting on the couch partying hard with VH1’s Happy Endings marathon surrounded by laundry (jealous?) I was upstairs when I finally heard Chris lose it and yell, SHUT UP! I heard a drawer being yanked open, so I rushed down to save my cow from possible obliteration.
I’m also thrilled to say we made it through all of 2013 without one hospitalization! Since Connor will be admitted in order to start the keto diet, we will not be able to say that of 2014. 2012 gave us five weeks in NICU, a brain surgery and an in-patient VEEG. Here’s hoping we all have a medically uneventful year.
One last thing — please keep in your thoughts that one of our newer TSC families entered our world of seizures last night and had to welcome 2014 in the ER. I’m hopeful they will quickly find seizure control. He’s doing well I understand.
I was contacted by Dave Terpening Insurance Company to be part of their “I Was Thankful for Insurance When…” post on their blog. I love any opportunity to get the word out on TSC so check it out here.
Clapping with Grandma (Chris’s mom) and remembering Lost back when it was good.My brother came in from NYC and refused to change a single diaper.
Mommy is so awesome, I even love her Mii.Christmas Eve bowl-off.Mommy has lost her mind. I’m not getting in that. Mommy is also questioning why her footwear looks so orthopedic here.
Flying with Uncle Carey.
Connor loves Cleo the dog.Dining out with Cousin Cody.Escape at the bowling alley!A cool cousin is one that gets down and crawls with you.
Sigh. I really hoped this wouldn’t be necessary, but the last increase in Onfi didn’t make much of a difference and we’re still at 1-4 seizures most days. I e-mailed his neuro and asked if he thought there would be any point to another increase, or should I just bite the bullet and move forward on the diet. I knew when I sent it what the answer would be since he had brought up the possibility of the ketogenic diet a few weeks ago. I was relieved that at least he thought modified Atkins was a reasonable alternative to keto. Not that I think MAD will be easy, but just the thought of keto intensely overwhelms me.
I keep reminding myself that if it works, it’s worth the extra effort, and if it doesn’t, we only do it for a few months. We”ll be meeting with a nutritionist at the CHOA keto clinic to start.
But if it doesn’t work…then what?
We’ve tried seven different medications, and even more effective cocktails only decrease seizures — they don’t stop them altogether. Sure, there are more meds we haven’t tried, but as I shared in my previous post about medical marijuana:
…less than 1% of patients who failed to respond to three anti-seizure drug regimens achieved adequate seizure control on subsequent drug treatments even though some were treated with as many as nine different drugs or drug combinations. -WebMD
I’m going to start this diet fully optimistic that it will work. Because if it doesn’t, the other options are to explore surgery again or live with the seizures. Sure would be nice to have the option of pediatric cannabis in Georgia. Please watch this clip from The Doctors in which Paige Figi explains what a miracle it has been for her daughter with Dravet Syndrome.
I am also seeking guest posts from people who are either legally using medical marijuana to treat their children, or are seeking it’s use — possibly entailing a move to another state. E-mail pin.the.map@gmail.com.
The write-from-home, stay-at-home mom thing is making me really lazy. If you had told me in my teaching days that I’d let my gray roots get so far before taking action or equate getting dressed to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or stretch out the months between haircuts to such an extreme, I wouldn’t have believed you. And yet, I maintain my love of clothes shopping, despite the fact that I’m too sluggish to put them on anywhere but a dressing room.
I also realized I need to pull myself out of a clothes rut:
But I did finally get a haircut:
The first thing my stylist said was, “Somebody’s been playing with color!” Sigh. Yes. Once again I’ve managed to start unintentionally turning my hair black with Nice ‘n Easy. Unfortunately, it just ain’t in the budget to do it professionally all the time. Especially since we have to pay off the hit we took when our old house under appraised, finish painting the new house, and — come hell or high water — we’re going on vacations again in 2014. We’ve gone on trips — that’s what you call it when you take the kid — but we are going on vacations –what you call it when you drop the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa’s and outrun them back to the car. And just Friday I received the exciting news that one of my good friends is engaged and I will likely be attending a wedding overseas in about a year!
Looks like I reloaded my Fitness Pal App just in time. I’ve been inputting my food intake for a week now to track my calories. I think it will really help this time since I find myself genuinely debating the merits of one Oreo cookie vs. two pieces of leftover Halloween candy. I started this right before the holidays because I really like a challenge. Also, I’m tackling my weight loss with a very specific strategy:
But here I’ve gone on and on about me when I know pretty well most — okay fine — all of you really only care about Connor, so…
Here he is relaxing with a puzzle:
To be clear, he only likes taking them apart and throwing the pieces everywhere.
This is what happens when I get up in his business about his molars:
And this pictures really doesn’t do justice to how much it hurt, right on the bone. And he wouldn’t let go. I almost panicked and smacked him, but refrained. I now know I will perform poorly in the event of an attack by a dog — or alligator. I believe the recommendation is to push toward the animal, not to pull away. Fail. Also, the state of my nails is not indicative of my current state of laziness. I’ve always been too lazy for mani/pedis. I regard them as annoying appointments to keep, like doctors. Random side story, though you can’t really tell in the picture, that nail is totally deformed from the time I slammed it in a car door when I was 15. It grows warped and downward the longer it gets, kind of like the creepy Guinness World Record keeper with the longest fingernails. But there I go about me again.
Go check out this page created for epilepsy awareness by a man who lost his young wife to epilepsy. He has been sharing people’s epilepsy stories all month for Epilepsy Awareness Month. He also makes these to share:
For those that might be confused, I don’t know if there is an Abigail, Ga — that was a misunderstanding — and my aforementioned laziness precludes me from Googling it. But these are pretty awesome. Check out his gallery of E-heros!
Medical Cannabis Growing Operation in Oakland, California (Photo credit: Rusty Blazenhoff)
Marijuana is not my thing. I know there are many people who would say that it’s just a matter of finding the right kind, but I’m more of a glass of wine kind of girl. That’s just my taste. I’ve never been big on the legalization of recreational marijuana, but I also didn’t oppose it. I’ve been pretty indifferent to the whole thing.
Then intractable epilepsy entered my life. To date Connor has tried seven seizure medications. He is currently on three and being slowly weaned off one. All have the potential for some pretty serious side effects, and he still has 1-4 seizures most days. And we’re lucky. As much as his seizures suck and play a role in his delays, they are not nearly as bad as what other families are dealing with. (Knocking on wood) Connor has never had a tonic clonic (grand mal) or status seizure (requiring medical intervention to stop). I’ve never had to watch him thrash painfully on the floor, or see him intubated because he’s been pumped with so many meds to stop an unrelenting seizure that he stops breathing on his own.
That is the reality for many people, and Connor is at risk for this as well. I may yearn for full seizure control, but there are people that would kill for the degree of control we have. They watch their kid have 300 seizures a day and ER visits are a regular occurrence. This isn’t some random anecdote. I KNOW these people. Mostly online, but I know them (as I write this, Connor just woke up from his nap on the couch next to me and had a seizure within a couple minutes).
Some people oppose medical marijuana because they can’t see beyond Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign. Others oppose it because we don’t have the studies to prove it or to indicate the appropriate dosages for pediatric patients. Some are just too caught up in the fact that people will abuse the privilege of medical marijuana by obtaining a card under false pretenses. Yes, people abuse it. They claim pain and just want to smoke weed. So what? The solution isn’t to punish the people that really need it. Shall I name a few of the far more dangerous legal medications that people abuse?
Unfortunately, thanks to the arbitrary demonization of marijuana, decades upon decades of opportunity for study have been wasted. The people who want to try MM for their children are desperate and don’t have time for politics. There have been countless stories of kids who have found their miracle in the form of a plant. That doesn’t mean it will work for everyone, and I’m not advocating it be a frontline med until we have more data, but it’s no easy task to complete clinical studies and gather that data when you are dealing with an illegal substance.
From WebMD:
Half of all epilepsy patients who are initially started on one anti-seizure drug remain seizure-free for at least a year, a new study confirms.
Among patients followed for as long as 26 years, initial response to drug treatments strongly predicted future seizure control.
Yet less than 1% of patients who failed to respond to three anti-seizure drug regimens achieved adequate seizure control on subsequent drug treatments even though some were treated with as many as nine different drugs or drug combinations.
The findings make it clear that epilepsy patients who are candidates for surgery or other non-drug treatments should be considered for these procedures earlier rather than later, says neurologist Patricia E. Penovich, MD, of the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Epilepsy Group in St. Paul.
“These patients don’t have to wait until they have failed five or six different drug regimens,” she tells WebMD. “If their seizures are not controlled by the first few medications it is reasonable to consider surgery.
And when surgery doesn’t work? Or if you aren’t even a candidate for surgery? Or in the case of TSC, you have a successful brain surgery only to have another tuber fire up?
If you can stand in the way of desperate parents and individuals struggling against the devastating effects of constant seizures, then congratulations. You’ve clearly never seen your loved one suffer. But it’s selfish to further your own agenda at the expense of others.
There’s no more time to argue. We’ve wasted enough.
Articles:
Paige Figi appears on The Doctors to share Charlotte’s story. (video)
A New York Times blog about the potential of medical marijuana and how the laws are preventing researchers from effectively studying it.
Infantile Spasms are not diagnosed early in many cases due to a lack of knowledge, even by physicians. I am not putting any blame on physicians, but the fact is that this is so rare, most practicing pediatricians simply won’t even see a case in their career. Parents are almost always blindsided by such a diagnosis. In some cases, a family has warning of a symptomatic onset of this epilepsy. All scientific evidence indicates early diagnosis and aggressive treatment gives the patient the best chance at the not only stopping the seizures, but the best developmental outcome as well.
The only thing I have obsessed over more than my son’s tuberous sclerosis complex diagnosis was the possible onset of infantile spasms. Since we had Connor’s diagnosis shortly after birth, we were in an uncommon position of knowing to be on the lookout for this rare and catastrophic seizure type. We…
Mixed Up Mommy 