Long Nights, Impossible Odds

It's been a very long day and it's not over. After another night of some of the strongest seizures yet we made the decision to move forward with a more aggressive approach in getting the awful episodes under control.

With Jenny here today I was able to get some much needed sleep from about 8 until noon. It's now been two days without a decent meal for me or Joan. Our house is a complete wreck and neither one of us has the energy to do something about it.

We decided to discuss all of our options with our pediatrician first. Of all the doctors that have worked with Ben, Dr. Flanders knows as much about him as Mom and Dad. Today's visit was actually our second with him in the past few days. Joan took Ben in Saturday to have him checked over and to see if the teething issue was indeed the main culprit. We also wanted to get a medical opinion on a small abscess on his left groin. He gave Ben an antibiotic for it and we treated the area with warm compresses throughout the weekend.

Today the area looked much worse and by the time of his appointment he had a small fever. Dr. Flanders suggested checking Ben into the hospital an idea Joan and I are very much against at this time. Flanders had very good reasons for us to consider it which mainly has to do with how quickly we can see the neurologist. It usually takes several weeks to get into see him.

In the end our pediatrician is well-liked and respected in our community. He made some phone calls, pulled his usual hat trick, and we're now full of morning appointments tomorrow. The bad news is that I will up late into the wee hours to make sure Ben gets only 5 hours or less of sleep overnight. Evidently they want him very "active" for his EEG tomorrow. He's than off to see a pediatric surgeon to discuss draining the area in his thigh. Good times, friends, good times.

As always we would appreciate some good thoughts and prayers from anyone willing to send them Ben's way. I'll obviously give an update again later tomorrow. Who knows? I might even stay up all night posting dirty jokes here...

Oh yes, I wonder who can be the first to guess where the title of this entry comes from? I'm gonna lay odds that KimmyK will guess it since she's so close to my age.