When I sit to write a post, I’m typically doing so while Greyson is napping, or in the middle of one of my insomnia episodes at 2 AM. I have had my fair share of insomnia episodes over the past month, I have not written a post. So much has happened over the past month, I keep waiting for things to calm down before I can process them and put our life experiences into words. Unfortunately, I can’t forsee our lives calming down anytime in the near future, so chaos writing it is.
Well, first and foremost, Roslynn celebrated her 6th birthday on May 29. She finished kindergarten on the 28th, which was the same day as my sister’s wedding. What a week it was! Squeezing one last full week of schooling into two days, a rehearsal dinner, wedding, dance recital AND a birthday pretty much ran us down to empty by memorial day. Roslynn was a flower girl at my sister’s wedding, and I was SO impressed at how well she did at the rehearsal and actual ceremony. She and my niece literally started the dancing at the reception and they were certainly the hit of the dance floor! We had such a great time with friends and family, and my sister looked gorgeous. Greyson was an honorary ring bearer, but because of his epilepsy and severe needs, he stayed home and had a nice mini staycation with his Pappy. I must admit, it was so nice to have time away where Derek and I could act like a couple, and it was nice to feel like a “normal” family, even for just a few hours. I know that sounds like something a parent shouldn’t say, but for Derek and I to have a few hours to not worry about chasing after Greyson, worrying about him having a seizure, or what he has in his mouth, was liberating in a way. I did miss him a lot when we left and checked in regularly with Pappy. He was extremely happy to see us once we got home and could snuggle with him.
Things were going fairly well until the end of May. Greyson started having seizures again the week before the wedding, so his neurologist increased his medications for seizure control. He seemed to do okay for a week or so, but has been having frequent seizures since his initial breakthrough in May. Duke came down with a mysterious infection a few days after we picked him up from the kennel, where we boarded him while we were participating in wedding activities. About a day or so when we picked him up, we noticed his hair was falling out a good bit, but I assumed this was because he had a bath at the groomer before bringing him home. By Friday of that week, I noticed that Duke was really biting/scratching at himself, particularly around his ears and neck. Derek and I determined that we would call the vet on Monday morning and see what the deal was with the itching.
Monday morning came and I called the vet’s office at 9 am when they opened. Well, I called for hours and no messages could be left on the machine and I couldn’t get anyone to respond by phone, via facebook messenger or by email. I later found that the office had been closed due to an emergency, so I had to wait until Tuesday morning. Once I finally got someone on the phone on Tuesday, all appointments were booked until Thursday. At this point, Duke’s neck, left side of his face, eyes and several areas on his body were visibly infected. I tried other vet offices for a sooner appointment, but everyone was booked. I scheduled for Thursday with his vet, but something deep down was telling me not to wait, that this could not wait any longer. After calling around and doing some research, I found a newer emergency curbside vet in Lancaster and gave them a call. Luckily, they could see him that evening, so off he went to the vet. After several tests and observation, the vet was ready to send Duke home with two medications and some follow-up lab work orders to be completed after his medicine was gone. Along with the infected hot spot on his neck, that spread to several parts of his body, he also has a condition in his kidneys that dilutes urine too much. Not sure if there is a cure or what we can do about it at this point, but we will follow-up with the vet once we are finished with the meds. The vet said it was a good idea that we didn’t wait, because the infection could have been much worse by the Thursday vet appointment.
Throughout the entire dog ordeal, my concern was getting Duke back to 100% ASAP. With Greyson having seizures frequently again, we need the dog to show us when Greyson is going to have one, or is having one. We gave him lots of TLC, hugs, treats and let him sleep in the big bed with us until he started feeling better. Though he has many bald spots that have remained on random parts of his body, we are so relieved that he is feeling better and is on the mend.
Greyson continues to have these partial seizures, which seemed to only impact the one side of his face. Up until yesterday, Greyson had not had a full tonic-clonic seizure in a few months and we knew that the partial seizures lasted for a few minutes, but stopped on their own most of the time. Not that they aren’t concerning, but we were getting pretty confident that we knew what to do and how to manage these partial seizures. Last evening however, Greyson had a severe tonic-clonic drop seizure, which is when the person with epilepsy falls mid-activity and slips into a complete state of unconsciousness. This has happened once before to Greyson, back in July of 2019 when we were on our family vacation. He dropped onto the floor while eating chips and went into a full tonic-clonic seizure. Similar to that event, last evening, Greyson also dropped (luckily on the bed, so he was not injured from the fall) and began having a full tonic-clonic episode. The difference with this episode was that Greyson immediately began to turn blue: first in the lips, then his limbs. I knew that this seizure wouldn’t stop on its own, so we gave him the emergency seizure medication. About 20-30 seconds later, he was up and aware of what had just happened.
I continue to glue all of the possible triggers together, so we can avoid or try to help him before these happen, but it seems like a completely different issue each time. Whether it be heat, lights, headache, extreme tiredness, hyperactivity or lack of medicine, the possible triggers are endless. I try to be a patient, understanding and informed parent when it comes to my son’s medical needs and concerns; however, after almost 5 years of medical and behavioral concerns, I am quickly losing hope that we will ever find someone who can truly help us. I constantly remind myself that there are individuals out there that have children who are far worse off than Greyson is, and that we could have it so much worse than we currently do. That is always my drive and motivation to keep pushing on and to fight/advocate for him and his needs. As much as we think we know about Greyson and his conditions, there is so much we don’t know. That’s why it is so important that we keep going, keep pushing and keep the faith, despite it being in low supply at the moment.
As we get closer and closer to settlement and move-in day for our new house, we also get closer to the peak of the summer. I think of how much better things will be for our family once we have space to move around and not be confined to the living room, which serves as our play room, tv room and dining area. Once we survive the hellish heatwave we are experiencing this week, one can only hope that the remainder of the summer is calm, cool(er) and at least a little collected.
La Vie de Autism 
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