Tuesday, August 18, 2009

"Court Date: Oct. 5"

That's what Kate wrote on a scrap piece of paper and placed in front of me during a Walk With Me committee meeting this afternoon. She had just answered a call from our adoption agency rep who told her the great news. We were only three days from the courts closing for five weeks for the rainy season, and we were thinking there was a good chance we wouldn't get a date scheduled in time. Not only did it get scheduled, but it got scheduled for the first day the courts are scheduled to reopen. If we get approved the first time (typically 80% of cases go through first time), we could be traveling before November 1. We'll see. So freaking excited ... so much to do to get ready!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Ugh, just when we thought we might be in the clear ...

After nearly eight months seizure-free, Roxie had another breakthrough seizure tonight, an hour and a half after going to bed. Kate went up to check on her around 9:40 and she was making a rhythmic sound, but didn't appear to be doing anything other than sucking her thumb. To be sure, Kate leaned in and pulled her thumb out of her mouth, saw that her eyes were open, and realized she was seizing. She carried her downstairs, we administered the diastat, and she stopped right at 5 minutes. 5 minutes later, she went to sleep.

She's opening her eyes periodically, but otherwise, seems to be resting and/or sleeping. Her heart rate got up to 154 during the seizure, but nothing scary. She is breathing fine and her heart rate is normal. Her temperature is normal as well. We don't know what caused this. Same as the four breakthrough seizures she had last Fall. Hope this isn't a sign of things to come for this Fall!

Anyway, the positive is that we brought Sully in to see the seizure before it stopped. He watched her and licked her for a couple minutes before she stopped seizing. Hope that will be helpful in future training. I did NOT get a video of it, however, which I'll try to remember for when it happens again. Supposedly that helps a lot in training a dog to alert.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Roxie's eye surgery

Our sweet girl is home resting after a long day at the hospital. Her eyes look pretty rough right now (swollen a bit and very red), but she is already moving them together better making us think the strabismus was at least somewhat corrected. Surgery lasted a little more than an hour and a half and there were no surprises. We spent a lot of time before the surgery talking with the anesthesiologist to make sure their plan for her was appropriate for someone with mitochondrial disease.

The one drug they did end up using to put her under was propofol. This drug was on a list we were told at the UMDF conference last month that mito patients should avoid. But after discussing it with the doctor, it was clear that it was the better alternative as the other drug was a potential culprit in malignant hypothermia which we did NOT want. Also, we were told they had used propofol on many mito patients before. We were impressed that the doc seemed to know so much about mitochondria disease ... a good sign it's getting more attention.

Anyway, she was groggy and a little fussy this afternoon, but mostly her usual self, minus the eyes being swollen and red. She would not eat much either, including her medicines. Not much we can do, so we gave her a cold compress on the eyes (boy, she loved that 1 minute treatment ... best to do 10 minutes, of course) to keep the swelling down, put more antibiotic ointment in her eyes, and recited Goodnight Moon. She fell asleep almost immediately. Poor girl.

In the morning, she is likely to have serious "mattering" around her eyes, otherwise know by the technical term of "eye boogers." But she should feel much better they tell us, and hopefully she'll eat something and take her meds, too.

It will be a couple months before we know how well the surgery will result in correcting her strabismus. If all went well, there will be no more need for additional surgeries, her eyes will work well together, and she'll start using them both at the same time. That would be fantastic and would really help her development we think.

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Sully the Wonder Dog Returns!

OK, so he's not exactly a Wonder Dog, but he's just as sweet and a heckuva lot more willing to sit, stay, come, fetch, and heel than he was before. Advanced training is over ... after a few months, we'll be looking at specific tasks for him to learn to be able to help Roxie. It's great to have him back.

McRae refused to sleep anywhere else than on the floor beside him in our bedroom tonight, so I guess she feels the same way.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Our son turned two today ...

... and we don't even know him. We can't wish him a happy birthday, hug him, or play him a tune. Kind of a weird situation to find oneself in. But we've been thinking about him all day.