Didn't want to see that sunrise

For the short version, see the "Recap" secton below.

We just had a successful trip to MN, to get a second opinion in orthopedics and for a neurology follow-up. While mom, dad and Melanie were at our first appointment, James was with Grandpa and got pretty sick, with fever. He was down for two days, and we even took him to a clinic for a strep test. Next morning he woke up, mysteriously, completely fine. That afternoon it looked like we'd have to take Melanie to the same clinic for a UTI. Thankfully, after some running around, that was averted with a home test strip and mysteriously vanishing symptoms.

We arrived home last night around dinner time, and all was uneventful. Mom had an inkling, so we gave Melanie a dose of ibuprofen in case she might be coming down with a fever. 3:45am I awake to alarming breathing sounds and rush up to find Melanie in a partial seizure and very hot. Since laying her down always encourages the seizure to generalize into a grand mal, I brought her downstairs and kept her upright. She was sitting on the couch, feverish and shaking while we got ibuprofen and tylenol in her, and some water. Then, it decided to come anyway. So I gave her her first-ever dose of our new rescue med, midazolam, which is sprayed up her nose. The convulsions stopped within a minute. Then I believe she was in a non-convulsive seizure, but ambiguously slipped into her sleepy post-ictal state after not too long. The midazolam has an extremely short half-life, so it was working out of her system pretty quickly-- unlike the 24+ hours of diastat. So we got to see how she shakes it off, without being drugged. Her eyes are always out of commission in this state, and her jaw is clenched and mouth doesn't work well. The rest of her body is limp, but all of this slowly improves (while she's still shaking from fever).

New this time, since she wasn't druggy, about 15 minutes into the post-ictal state we heard a tiny voice attempt a word. Then a few words... But her tongue and mouth weren't quite functioning yet. When Daddy stepped in the room, with her eyes still closed, she said "haa Daddy." As I watched, I sensed that 'coming out of anesthesia' feeling, when you just want to shake it off and get up and move around. She tried and tried: moving, talking and even singing it off. "ooooOOWEEEEEOOooooh!" If James had been awake, he would have been laughing at her. It was confusing, sad, cute and funny all at once. This started getting annoying the more she came-to, and I was almost lamenting the loss of the diastat stupor, because we used to be able to put her back to bed right away and let her sleep it off for a solid night and late morning. Wellll, she woke up around 7:30.  So we all missed church and took turns sleeping... kinda. Still exhausted.


Recap: Took a family trip to see the grandparents in MN for the week, beginning with an orthopedic appointment, then neurology. Both appointments went well. James was sick Tuesday and Wednesday with a relentless fever, but woke up completely fine Thursday. We got home Saturday night, and it seems Melanie may have caught that bug, and began with a seizure this morning at 4am. Our first trial of the new rescue med, which sprays up the nose, seemed to go well. The whole seizure, including the ambiguous ending and coming-to was much quicker than usual. Since the new drug has a 30-min half-life, she's looking pretty good today, just more wobbley and fighting off an illness. Mom and Dad lost a lot of sleep and we had to miss church this morning. We got back in bed after the sun rose.

We made it nearly four months without a seizure!