Monday, October 15, 2007

Sick Little Girl

Sophie's still sick -- this is day 7 with the same vertigo/dizziness. I'm taking her to the doctor in 20 minutes. Until we get her straightened out, I probably won't be on here much. She's all I can think about and focus on right now. Please send up your prayers for her.

Update (because I had a few minutes and felt like venting a bit):
The doctor is consulting with her neurologist today, and will call me later to let me know what he says. Her pediatrician is concerned, and agrees we have to get this one stopped and will probably be looking at a preventative medication. But he wants to wait to see what the neurologist says.

I checked my notes on the last time she had this, and it lasted 10 days (this was in May of this year).

A lot of you don't know her history, so here it is: She had some kind of episode when she was 2 and a half, where she couldn't walk and was non responsive. She had an EEG, CT scan, bloodwork, and met with the best pediatric neurologist in the state of Indiana (he's affiliated with Riley Hospital in Indy). She continued to have dizzy spells every few months, and so she had an MRI when she was 4 years old, which thank God ruled out a brain tumor. The Doctor diagnosed her with complicated migraines. She doesn't get pain in her head, just the vertigo/dizziness, can't walk or often even sit up, and sometimes has the typical migraine touch/light sensitivity and vomiting (she had this last Thursday).

Last fall the neurologist released her from his care, because she was having episodes every 3-4 months that lasted 2-4 days--pretty normal for the diagnosis. Well, 10 day long episodes are not normal and this is the 2nd one this year.

The good news is, she's not epileptic and doesn't have a tumor and isn't vomiting non stop. I know it could be so much worse. But she's missing school and missing LIFE and I hate seeing her cry when it gets bad. And we just don't know WHY they are lasting so long. The other good news is, we haven't really tried any medication, other than ibuprofen, antivert, and midrin (nothing has helped). I know there's a lot more out there we can try.

I'm also lucky because I can bring her with me to the office. If I had my old job from 3 years ago, we'd be in dire straits because there's no one else who can keep her for days and days, and I'd probably have had to quit or would have been fired. But it is still stressful to have her here and to be out of our routine.

My eating the past 4 days has been awful. I haven't run since last Wednesday. I've gained a couple of pounds. I'm not happy about it, but I'm in survival mode. The sad thing is, survival mode means chubbie girl shows up and takes over. Too bad survival mode doesn't mean I totally lose my appetite.

9 comments:

Tigerlilly said...

Sorry to hear she is still sick. I will be praying for her! (and you)

Grumpy Chair said...

Sending positive thoughts your way (and my prayers).

Hang in there Laura. I hope your daughter gets some relief soon.

Lori G. said...

Laura, I hope Sophie feels better soon but more importantly, that they can diagnose her. That has to be tremendously frustrating on top of everything else.

Take care of yourself too. I'll be thinking of you and sending good thoughts your way.

ws said...

I hope Sophie feels better soon and that life returns to normal as well.

feel free to vent, obviously I'm never afraid to do that...

Nancy said...

My survival mode involves chubby girl also. Hang in there. Venting is why we are here.

We will say some prayers for Sophie and mom.

Marcy said...

(((HUGS))) Gosh it's SO hard when they're sick and not knowing what is going on is the WORST!! I hope you guys can figure out a good plan to help her get better. Poor thing. She's so young too :-(

Jess said...

Could there be something dietary that triggers these episodes? I'm no doctor, but my brother used to suffer from migraines when we were kids (he seemingly grew out of them -- for the most part) and his were triggered by peanut butter, chocolate, caffeine, and something else but I forget. Oh, and what wasn't dietary was stress related. Is she under any particular stress at school?

But I will be thinking of her and hoping that she gets better quick!

Pokey said...

I'm so sorry...I hope she feels better soon.

How old is Sophie?

Sally JPA said...

So sorry about this situation. It must be so frustrating.

Sometimes all you can do is just hang on, and you're doing that. You'll be ready and eager to get food/exercise back on track when things clear up.