Well, Caroline is better now, after a week or two of being sick. We know she's better because now she's having seizures again. And she's not sleeping well again. Both sure signs that she's healthy. Sometimes I'm not entirely sure whether I prefer Caroline to be healthy or sick.
In early February, Caroline was healthy, and not sleeping well. She would wake up about 2 a.m. each morning--often with a seizure. Sometimes she would go back to sleep, sometimes she wouldn't. She was having six to eight seizures a day. Then on Feb. 6, she started sounding congested. She had six seizures that day. On Feb. 7, she woke up at 2 a.m, then went back to sleep until about 7, when we measured her temperature at 104. She only had two seizures that day. Over the next few days the fever continued and she had between two and four seizures a day. She started sleeping better on Feb. 9. On Feb. 11, Christine took her to the doctor, who found a blister on her eardrum. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic.
During the next 10 days of being on the antibiotic, Caroline had a total of five seizures, and she had several days with no seizures at all. Of course, this was also when the really negative side effect of Caroline illnesses kicked in: she got sad. For a little more than a week, she cried a lot--almost constantly for a few days.
Crying is a regular part of Caroline illnesses. At such times there are often only two things that can cheer her up. First, you can hold her upright, with her head on her shoulder. This works best when you are standing, but sometimes it works if you are sitting also; with her now weighing about 35 pounds, it had better work sitting, because our backs can't handle standing for long. The second option for cheering Caroline up (especially helpful when option one doesn't work) is to put her in the car and go for a drive. We don't know why this works, but it does. Sometimes you have to drive for 15 to 20 minutes before she'll calm down, but after that, she'll often remain happy in the car for hours--even if the car is just sitting in the garage (but if you take her out of the car, you may have another long drive ahead of you to cheer her up again). During this time, we were tempted to take a spontaneous road trip somewhere far away. Instead we went to the planetarium in Salt Lake--which was good for an hour drive each way (and, surprisingly, Caroline was quiet and happy in the planetarium.)
Anyway, after several days of sadness, no seizures, and good sleeping, she got healthy. She cheered up on Feb. 21, the last day of the antibiotic. She had no seizures that day or the next. Then suddenly on Feb. 23, she had 12 seizures; 15 on Feb. 24. On Feb. 25 she woke up at about 4:50 a.m. and had 18 seizures. Feb. 26 it was 2:30 a.m. and 9 seizures. 2:15 and 17 seizures the next day. You get the idea.
This pattern has repeated itself over and over in the last year--with the seizures, anyway. The sleeping/not sleeping pattern is a recent addition to the cycle. Not that we really have a choice, but it seems that we either have seizures or sickness. I guess I prefer Caroline healthy, because, well, she's healthy. And when she's healthy, she's generally happy. (And the sadness is much harder to deal with than the seizures.) So we're grateful that at the moment, Caroline is happy and healthy--even though that sometimes means we are listening to her giggling loudly through a seizure at 2:30 a.m....
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