03/04/09

Dustin has recently been diagnosed with epilepsy. His seizures start in his upper left temporal lobe as a partial seizure and then spread throughout the brain into a grand mal seizure. They last an unusually long ammount of time even when on anti-seziure medicine. The one that was recorded during his hospital stay was 55 minutes and he was eventually given medicine to stop it. He is also falling in the small percent that cannot control their epilepsy with medication. He has failed two very strong and widely used seizure medicines already. He has also had a seizure while on the third medicine. His neurologist is now trying a combination of two drugs. He is not expecting them to work. If he does have another grand mal seizure my mom is to call the neurologist immediately and he will start the process of sending him to the IU Med Center. At that point there will be a couple of options one would be brain surgery and the other would be some kind of a device being implanted. Today he is still having significant seizure activity from his last seizure yesterday morning and his behavior is out of control. After our appointment, the neurologist observed some of his behaviors and wanted to admit him to the psych ward at the hospital. Dustin seems very confused, scared and agitated and it doesn't seem to be a good mix. He is so frustrated and I can't blame him. He wants to know what is going on and why and to top it off his brain is traumatized and not working right. It's hard for him to process everything. They took him by ambulance to the hospital. Right after they gave him some kind of sedation he started to twitch and his eyes rolled back, but he quickly came out of it. The staff seemed to think that he didn't go into a full seizure because of the meds they had just given him. They weren't able to keep him at the hospital and he seems to have calmed down some. So, right now we are waiting to see if this new medicine will work with the Keppra. The doctor doesn't seem to think that it will. I respect the doctor. He is compassionate and seems knowledgable. I can't put my trust in the doctor . I can only trust God with this. I know that he is in control. If it is his will the medicine will work. I'm asking everyone to pray for this. If the meds don't work I feel like we will be confident in knowing God had a different plan. Because of the ongoing seziure activity Dustin is also not himself. We miss him and it's heartbreaking to see him so hurt and confused and frustrated by all of this. Please, pray that the activity will stop and he can be himself again. Pray for peace for Dustin in all of this. He wants to know why God is doing this to him and it's hard to explain especially in the state he is in. Pray for our family. I know that we can go through this together and come out closer and with a deeper faith, but it won't be easy. Pray that we remember to thank God for this struggle and oppurtunity to grow closer to him. Pray that we remember god is in control and that our lives do have a purpose. Please, pray for his doctors and for wisdom...that they are guided by God in their decisions.