Pediatric Neurologist

Today was a check-up with Malachi's new Pediatric Neurologist, Dr. Lavenstien (Dr. L). He had a second year resident with him also who was very nice.

Both Dr.'s were very impressed with Malachi's development and are confident that the seizures aren't inhibiting that. Dr. L said that we're going to be watching Malachi for any seizure activity over the next six months. If we see any hint of activity during this time we're going to do a 72 hour EEG. They're hoping to get him during a real deep sleep to see if they can catch anything (with the two previous EEG's they've caught nothing). If we don't see any activity we'll go see him in six months.

John and I noticed that Malachi's sleeping has decreased the last couple of weeks. I asked the Dr. if this is a side effect and he confirmed that it is. It doesn't become a concern unless Malachi starts sleeping fewer than eight hours a night. So far he's still doing that. It's just hard for mom and dad to get up at 5:50 am like we did today.

The Dr. seems unconcerned by our impending move. The city we're moving to (again, to find out where check John's blog) has a population of 11 million. He seems confident that if there isn't anything in our city to take him to that there'll be something close. The medicine that Malachi takes (Keppra) is made by 22 different companies world wide and will be very easy to access.

If Malachi gains 15% body weight then we need to increase his dose (4 lbs). He hasn't gained a pound in over a year it seems (this did not concern the Dr. - he's a pretty mello guy) so this isn't something I'm very concerned about.

Apparently 70% of kids that have Epilepsy don't ever find out why. The cases that are like that who go seizure free for a couple of years on medicine have a very good prognoses. That said...if Malachi goes two years with no seizure activity on his medicine then we'll look at weaning him off the medicine to see if he's done seizing.

Please pray that Malachi has zero seizure activity. I want to never see him do that again. That is my prayer for my son. I love him so much, and I don't want to see him go through this again.

Thank you to everyone who's been so supportive over the last few weeks. We miss you all so much and love you all so much. And believe me, I too wish that you could just hop in a car and come over to hang and chat. I really miss y'all so much.

Blessings to you all!