Stuck in status - Part 2

Doing the EEG

Written Friday, November 10 (but posted on November 11)

Well, 20 hours later we are ensconced in the ER and, true to form, the medical team is swamped. In the last eight hours not much has been done for C.

Here's the sum total of intervention thus far:

1. An EEG (see the photo). No surprises. The usual haywire scribbles.
2. Two rounds of Valium IV (intravenous). Result: Longer intervals between seizures and an "out" C.
3. Keppra IV - even though she received her morning dose before we got here. No clue as to reason. Didn't bother asking.
4. First dose of Vimpat. The neurologist intended to start her on that but she later learned that the hospital's wards had none and that the hospital pharmacy was closed. She notified us she'd give something else instead of Vimpat when I remembered having purchased some a year ago. The neurologist had first given us a prescription for it - to replace Valproic Acid - but then nixed it at the last minute. She had discovered it poses a slight risk of liver damage. Not something we needed again. But I had already bought the stuff so I stashed it away in my old-drug closet.

So I brought it from home and C. has had her first dose of Vimpat. Sometimes it pays to be a hoarder.

She's had only one meal today. The rest of the day, due to her seizures or her Valium-induced sleep, eating wasn't feasible.

A brief, eventful ER visit

That's me, briefly visiting C. and hubby in ER and giving
a hand with feeding

So much is happening and so fast.

Following my footsteps, C. took an ambulance yesterday accompanied by the hubby and they have been in the ER since 2:30 yesterday afternoon. I am home trying to keep calm (hah!) and recuperate from my hospital stint.

After the requisite couple of hours of being ignored by harried hospital staff, C.'s treatments are rolling in fast and thick. She has been started on IV Keppra, an anti-epileptic we did many years ago and abandoned. While we don't recall any details, it was probably for lack of results.

But some of these drugs are known to impact differently at different times so re-tries are common. Besides, unlike Vimpat, which we started yesterday and are now dropping, we were advised Keppra is harmless to the liver.

Then, at my suggestion, the gastro specialist gave C. her first dose of steroids for her malfunctioning liver. We'd been waiting for a liver biopsy to ascertain whether or not the gastro's hunch about Autoimmune Hepatitis was correct. But organizing that was shlepping on for so many weeks that I thought it might be better to just jump to steroids without it. I'm still in shock over the gastro's agreement to actually go that route.

Now, with hospitals here overcrowded to bursting - and C. and hubby languishing in an ER aisle for 24 hours - the doctors have decided to release her imminently.

Hoping the new treatments herald better days for us all.