Little Kids Should Not Have Seizures. Not.

Charlotte has been on medication to control seizures for more than two years. Before her fifth birthday, she'd had two EEGs and an MRI, both of which have risks--EEG requires sleep deprivation and, for younger kids, the MRI requires anesthesia. I'm not going to equate sleep deprivation with the risks of anesthesia in general, but anyone who has ever seen me sans sleep will understand why there is risk attached. If you haven't had the pleasure, let's just say that that particular irritability trigger is one which Charlotte comes by honestly.

Over the past two years, we've gradually had to increase the medication to adjust for growth spurts. The last time we did this was between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We spent 10 days on the East Coast for winter break, and, not long after we returned, Charlotte had a seizure. And then another. And another.

I should mention that her seizures have always been very small. In fact, for a long time, we didn't know she was having them. But I perfectly remember the first time I saw one. She wasn't yet a year old. She was wearing a navy blue outfit dotted with little white anchors, with a white sailor collar. She was on her stomach on the floor and had just pushed herself up onto her arms when she started shaking. Part of my brain thought, "That looks like a seizure." The rest of my brain rejected that thought outright, insisting instead that it was the exertion of pushing herself up. It wasn't a seizure. No one else saw it. It didn't happen again. The pediatrician thought it was, yes, the exertion of pushing herself up.

Charlotte was born six weeks early and very small--three pounds, 11 ounces. She spent two weeks in the NICU to get her weight up to FOUR POUNDS. They send them home at four pounds. Jeezus, talk about scary. But she never needed any other intervention--no lung, heart, or other issues. Nothing to explain why she wouldn't walk until she was almost two or talk until she was almost three, or why, at five, her fine motor skills would be below average and she'd still be in speech therapy.

In the week after we got home from the East Coast, Charlotte had three or four seizures. We noted it, but decided to take the "watch and see" approach, as she typically has more seizures when she's over-tired. And then the day after her fifth birthday, they started coming, one after the other after the other. Over the course of the morning, she had ten. Ten. She'd never had that many in an entire day. Ever.

A quick, slightly (ha!) panicked call to the neurologist resulted in a new medication that had to be started that very day, plus an urgent request for an MRI through Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital--they are the only place to go if you need to put a kid under for an MRI. We couldn't get in for the MRI until yesterday, almost 10 days after the episode, but they had to bump someone else, so I couldn't really complain about it. Loudly.

The MRI was scheduled for 10:00am, but we had to arrive at 8:30 to complete registration and all of the pre-op stuff--basically to make sure she wasn't sick and to get a current height and weight. Other than me accidentally getting a few deep breaths of the anesthesia (more on that later, perhaps), the whole thing went well. The hardest part of both MRIs was waiting for Charlotte to wake up. She likes her sleep anyway (again, comes by that honestly), and so uses this as an excellent opportunity to get in an extra hour. Both times the nurse had to wake her up after I sat for the hour, watching that tiny body, making sure of the exhale and inhale, happy to see the slight flush of pink that kept her suddenly, amazingly translucent skin from looking too doll-like.

But awake she finally did, and recovered as well as she has from anything before: from the previous MRI, from getting stitches in her head, from various colds, hives, bumps, bruises and scratches--none of which she ever complains about. In other words, she rejected outright Nurse Jenn's instructions that she have nothing but clear liquids and popcicles for a few hours, then maybe yogurt or ice cream before moving on to toast or rice or crackers.

No. Charlotte wanted Goldfish. And chocolate. And pizza. After several minutes of "discussion," we "compromised" on the Goldfish: she got one bowl instead of two. And then we agreed that if she felt as though the milk was going to make her vomit, she knew where the bathroom was. I did get her to stick to toast with butter and honey for dinner but was completely unable to convince her of the potential dangers of running, leaping from the furniture, turning cartwheels and dancing with the dog--all of which were also discouraged by Nurse Jenn. I think Charlotte took Nurse Jenn's lack of specificity as a series of very large loopholes ripe for exploitation.

The neurologist promised to call as soon as she heard anything, and she was true to her word. She called me tonight, at 8:00, because she didn't think I'd want to wait the entire weekend to hear that it was unchanged from the MRI a year ago. She also apologized not being able to give me a better answer to "Why did this happen?". Apparently, "Sometimes it just happens" is all they can give you.

So for now, we're back to "watch and see." I get to go back to trying to suppress the instinct to catch her the minute she begins to fall. And Charlotte gets to keep being Charlotte: Funny, tough, sweet, indomitable. And definitey not ever in the mood to have someone catch her if she falls or even notice that anything happened.

Seriously. There's Nothing Wrong With Me!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about being oddly excited to go for my physical. It was, after all, the first time in years I wasn't dreading the first step of the process: the weighing in. I'd gained . . . . well, let's just say a bit of weight since my late 20s. I realize that this is, in general, a normal part of aging (particularly for those of us not really into the gym culture), but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.

Anyway, quick recap: from around the end of July until the beginning of September I'd lost 10 pounds. The doctor wasn't really happy about that--apparently it's not normal--but agreed to let it go as I was happy and healthy. Caveat: I had to agree to come back if I lost 5-10 more in the next month. Three weeks later I was back, down another seven, rib cage on display.

In the past two weeks, I've had a full blood workup, a pelvic ultrasound (as unpleasant as I'd remembered from my two pregnancies), and a chest X-ray. So far, we've ruled out:

• Gym-rat-itis
• Leukemia ("WTF? You were looking for that?!")
• Ovarian cancer
• Uterine cancer
  
• Anything having to do with my lungs
• Thyroid disease (runs in my family)

Today I "got" to have an abdominal CT scan. Fun! You have to get there an hour and a half before your appointment time so that you can choke down of a delicious mixture of tang and iodine. They gave it to me two cups at a time, with instructions to finish it within half an hour. Then the tech brought two more cups. Half an hour later, praying that I wouldn't vomit, I finished the last drop, putting the cup down as if it were a shot glass on a bar. Done and done.

Not quite.

The tech brought two more cups. I yelped. Involuntarily and not quietly. Part of the reason I was there was because I have no appetite and feel full after just a few bites. 64 ounces of the Tang/Iodine cocktail wasn't going down easy. And while I didn't vomit, I have a sneaking suspicion as to why there are no potted plants in the waiting room.

I won't know anything until tomorrow at least. I'm not worried because I already know what the CT will show. Nothing--same as the rest of the tests. So this may be the one time when it really is all in my head--my body just decided to dump the weight and I'm OK with that.

Really.

Yay! It's Time for My Physical!

UPDATE: The doctor was a little freaked out that I had lost 10 pounds in less than six weeks, but was willing let it go, for the time being, since I was happy about it and obviously had no other issues. However. If I lose another 5-10 in the next month I have to go back. Something about a scope to look at the lining of my stomach. If ever there were an incentive to eat . . . Sadly, I had to spit out a lovely salmon and avocado roll lost night because my stomach said, "Uh, no. I'm done for the night." Oh and, I didn't get out of having another mammogram Bah.


"Seriously?" you ask, "YAY?"

Yes! For the first time in waay too long, I'm going to hear a doctor say "You've lost a bit of weight since the last time you were here. Which was . . . not that long ago."

Nothing to explain. Nothing to test for. I'm not sick. I just inadvertently stumbled upon what a friend recently told me was the "ELF Diet (Eat Less Food)."

Sometime around the middle of July I just stopped wanting to eat. Even when I was hungry, I'd only be able to manage a few bites before feeling as though one morsel more would be throwing a gauntlet at the feet of the Vomit God.

People keep asking "Are you stressed?" to which I am forced to reply, "Do you even know me?"

I am a medium-beige skin suit wrapped around a compressed, person-shaped mound of stress, nerves, anxiety and irritation. Oh, and caffeine receptors.

In other words, yes. Yes I am stressed. But probably not out of my normal range.

This not eating went on for three weeks or so. I wasn't ever faint from hunger--well, maybe once or twice--so my body was obviously OK with the amount of food it was getting. And I was OK with the amount of extra room I found in my jeans.

And then, one day, the feeling sick part of it just went away and I discovered the truth in the saying that it takes 21 days to form a habit (look, Ma! 14 million results--it must be true! Now go and Bing it instead so you can whittle it down to a more manageable eight million). I eat smaller meals. I don't snack between meals. And in what some might see as a sign that I am seriously ill, I turned down chocolate cake at Pamplemousse.

But here's where the whole thing gets weird, though "obsessive" might be the better word choice.

I caught myself planning the outfit to wear to the doctor's office. Not to look hot or anything--I like my doctor but she's not really my type--but I was doing a mental weight comparison of certain pieces of clothing. And rather than simply tossing this idea and putting myself in time out, I changed clothes three times and weighed myself in each outfit. Yes. I. Did.

You know how the nurse always says it's OK to leave on the sweater, just take off the shoes because it doesn't make that much of a difference anyway? It's so not true. The jeans and t-shirt weighed 1.2 pounds more than the sundress. And when you have two kids and don't get to the gym as often as you should and the last nurse you saw said that no one liked the weigh-in, especially when they didn't feel good about themselves anyway, that 1.2 pounds is huge. I don't care that the number difference is all smoke and mirrors--I care that the number on the "permanent record" is as close as possible to what I actually weigh.

And once I cross that little psychological finish line I've set for myself, I'll probably have to stop by Pamplemousse for a slice of Chocolate Chocolate cake.

I only hope that the doctor won't make me get a mammogram this year. Little known (at least to men) secret of weight loss: The boobs are usually the first to go, making it that much harder to get a pretty picture in the Boob Smasher 3000. Details to come!

Lucky, lucky you!

How Do You Respond to Utter Stupidity?

I spent a good bit of the day trying to write a post about the Michael-Savage-on-autism idiocy, otherwise known as "Look! Someone need to boost his ratings again!"* I didn't get very far because I couldn't come up with a clever way to bitch-slap him into next Wednesday. Not that I would ever do that. Ahem. So I checked with a much wiser friend who reminded me that I shouldn't add to his link pile and that he didn't deserve the effort anyway.

Fortunately, Gene Weingarten*, the Washington Post's resident funnyman, had already come up with the perfect response:

"Do you remember Michael Savage, the poisonous right-wing radio talk show host whom I reported about in my piece on 24-hour punditry? Michael is back in the news for expressing the opinion, on the air, that "99 percent" of all children diagnosed with autism are "brats" who haven't been told to "cut the act out." He said: "They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life.'"

Savage is not retracting this, even though he admits it might be a little wrong. And I don't blame him. Getting things a little wrong is okay. I remain a supporter of Michael Savage, because I am a fan of his column "Savage Love," in which he deals forthrightly with the fact that he is gay and proud of it, and joyfully gives out highly knowledgeable advice on techniques for active, hedonistic, sexually adventuresome gay males like himself. I LOVE that column." **

The only thing I have to add is this: It's a shame that Michael Savage appears to no longer have a father around to tell him to stop acting like a moron.


* I linked to Media Matters on this because 1) they were the first ones to push it mainstream, thus pissing off MS; and 2) because linking to the Savage site made me queasy. You can Google it.
** Yes, yes. I know--and so does Gene--that Michael and Dan Savage are not the same people. And therein lies the joke.

Gollum Lives in My Gym

Gollum lives in my gym, hiding behind her iPod Nano
The elliptical cringes under the relentless desperation
As her legs pump obsessively. The rate never slows
Except to change direction

Gollum’s precious is no longer the ring
Slipped from bony finger, betrayed by howl and shriek
No. Precious is now the noontime shadow
With whom she furiously competes

Gollum lives in my gym, hiding behind her iPod Nano

Where is Elizbeth?

I've been worried about Elizabeth Edwards over the past couple of weeks. She hasn't been anywhere near as visible on the campaign trail as in the past. She was with John in New Orleans today, of course, but otherwise, not so much. Anyone know? But here's hoping it's not bad news.