The End of the Seizure-Free Streak

They say "All good things come to an end," and unfortunately that is true with Eddy and his 25-month seizure-freedom streak. Yesterday evening, Eddy had his first seizure since June of 2013.  I had just met my friend Katie for dinner, and I got a phone call from Ed that Eddy had asphyxiated on his dinner milk and Ed had to give him the Heimlich maneuver. As I was on the phone with him, he said, "Oh no, he's having a seizure." I was hoping to never hear those words again. I ran out of there fast and drove home to a very agitated and scared Eddy. The incident really shook him up because he is SO much more aware of everything going on than he was three years ago when he started having seizures. It's great that he's aware but it makes situations like this so much harder because he's so frightened now, and he can't communicate how he's feeling and what is wrong.

We aren't sure why exactly the seizure occurred. It was a quick, ten-second tonic seizure, very similar to the ones he had regularly two and a half years ago. It could've been a result of him choking on his milk, or he could've already been having a seizure and that's why he began choking in the first place. It could be because he had a stomach bug because following the seizure, he threw up four times last night. Whatever the cause, we are hoping that it was a fluke and it's not going to happen again.

Eddy is back to himself today and did well in therapy. He's eating and feeling fine and is very alert and happy. Discounting yesterday's event, we have been very happy with Eddy and his progress. We took him to a biomedical autism doctor in Cleveland in April, and he tested a ton of things through blood, stool, and urine tests. It took us about a month just to do all of the tests and another several weeks to get the results back. We had a phone appointment to go over the results a couple of weeks ago and the results helped his doctor to know what to prescribe. Eddy is starting several new supplements, and we're hopeful they will help him.

Eddy has been doing very well in therapy, and he is now counting to 20 (nonverbally but he is able to demonstrate his knowledge that 15 comes after 14, etc.), spelling words, recognizing words, sorting objects into groups, stacking eight blocks independently, placing pegs in a peg board, and climbing the stairs. Additionally, his eye contact is much improved and he has been much more social lately. He loves giving hugs and kisses and is constantly "checking in" and coming over to me when I'm making dinner and when I walk into a room. It's the little things with Eddy, but the "little things" are really "very big things" with him. He's making improvements in every area, from strength to awareness to rate of learning new things to attention span. So we are very pleased with Eddy and his progress, and that is what we are trying to focus on, not the fact that the horrible seizure beast returned yesterday.

We really hope that the seizure was a one-time thing. Please pray that they don't start coming back regularly, and that Eddy continues to progress well. And please continue to pray that he will start talking soon! We truly appreciate your prayers for Eddy and your love for him. Can you believe he will be FOUR next week?! He is truly such a blessing, such an incredible soul. I continue to have a lot of hope for his future, and I know that he will do great things.