Q&A Update

David is a popular guy! Of course we already knew that....but WOW! So I posted a blog the other day and I realized that it was only the second blog about David in 2015. That is really unlike me but there has been a lot going on in 2015 that has kept me busy. Anyway, I had a lot of messages about my latest blog post along with some questions. Yes, I am a bad person and sometimes the only way even family members know what is going on in Davidtopia is when I blog or fb post. So here are some answers and updates.

First of all, health wise, David is doing well. He has had some rough patches throughout the year and he started having some weird seizures this summer, but for the most part.....he is healthy.

No....we do not have definitive confirmation that David has Autism. His neurologist simply stated that he has many traits (and seems to be developing more as he grows older) that are on the Autism spectrum. However, that does not mean he is autistic and the only way we will know for sure is to have him fully tested. That is in my future plans to have him fully tested.

David is now 15 years old. Yes...it's true. He is a full fledged teenager with full fledged teen aged attitude. I am thankful everyday considering 15 years ago I didn't know whether he would ever get out of the NICU.

Yes....David still has seizures. There is really little known about seizures, especially in kids like him. He had them in the NICU along with several strokes, but once out of the NICU he never had another seizure until 2008. That in itself is strange in that he didn't have them all along, but he didn't. The 2008 seizure was a febrile seizure brought on by a temp from a virus he had. It seemed to be the catalyst for the start of many more seizures to come. In the years since he has had seizures, he has had many EEG's with different result. Some of his activity has come from the right side, some from the left, some all over and there has even been one EEG that showed no seizure activity at all. It stumps the neurologist and makes it quite the hat trick to get his seizure meds correct and keep them stable. Med changes in our home are no fun and come with a great many side effects that sometimes take us months to work our way through. That is on my end. I can't imagine what they do to David on his end. We have also learned that his seizures can be effected by lack of sleep, stress, change, growth, hormones and illness and those are just what we know about. There could be other things that we have yet to discover. The neurologist has also told us that just as quickly as his seizures started, he could also just grow out of them. On the other hand, he could suffer with them his entire life. So as you see.....seizures continue to keep us guessing.

Yes....David is currently doing home bound school. No....I have no plans to make this permanent. This is to take the time to get him sleeping properly again as well as getting his seizures under control. There will always be change in Davids life and to some degree he will have to learn to live with change, but those of us in his life will have to learn how best to introduce change so as not to throw him into a tailspin. I knew change was an issue for him but I had no idea to what degree or I would better have been able to prepare the school, his teacher and others in his life. I have been doing a great deal of study on change in kids like David and how hormones and even diet can have an effect on brain activity, seizures and how they handle change and life in general. Some of it makes a lot of sense and I plan on trying some things to help David handle the world better. He is way too social and way too smart to never go back to school again and I want way more for him than to simply spend his days at home.

So yes....David is doing well trying to adjust to his new normal. Last night I thought we might be dealing with a nasty stomach bug. I had it and I was hoping it would pass over him, but he spiked a fever and started acting like he felt pretty bad. I did an all niter making sure if he were to throw up I was right there so he wouldn't have a chance to aspirate. Luckily it never came to that and by early this morning his temp had broke. He slept for awhile and then got up raring to go. Shew.....bullet dodged!!! Now ....we will just take our vitamins and enjoy the Christmas season.

There you have it. I hope I have updated everyone. Things are about to get hectic in the next couple of weeks, so if I don't manage another blog in 2015, David and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and an amazing New Year.