Catching up with the Peanut

In the 74 days since her first seizure caught us by surprise, Pepper has battled 91 seizures. Her daddy is a high school math teacher, so totals are important in this house. There were days where we watched as she fought through twelve seizures in a twelve hour period. Nothing can prepare you for the sight of your unresponsive baby, stiff limbs twitching involuntarily, eyes fixed, pupils dilated and face slowly turning blue from lack of oxygen. Not even seeing it twelve times in one day. Having spent most of the summer in and out of hospital with each cluster, we have finally come to a point where the seizures, though not completely under control, have slowed down. The clusters she was having have lessened in quantity, though the intensity of each seizure always changes. This morning Pepper had a seizure in her highchair while being fed breakfast. It stills my heart to see her curl up like a bug and stiffen her body in convulsions. So here we are. Almost time for her night-time cocktail of medicines. One makes her hyper and is in liquid form. It tastes like paint. To allow her to have a healthy sleep at night, we give her a quarter of an anti-anxiety pill to counter the effect of the liquid. The medicine keeping her seizures subdued is in pill form and needs to crushed. No one breathes when this one is being administered. Every granule is needed. And finally, the vitamins and minerals. Iron and B6.  Poor thing. Well, off to the kitchen pharmacy I go.. It’s almost that time.