2 Weeks

That's right. Hayden has been siezure free for two weeks. We are now beginning to wean him off of the steroids and are hoping for the best. His EEG last week looked better. With any luck these seizures will be a memory soon. His lab results gave us a bit of a scare last week. His white count was 25. Anything over 18 for his age is concerning. I had to squeeze him in to the pediatrician's office for tests on Friday to make sure he wasn't sick. His urine and chest x-ray came back fine and his white count was 14.9 when retested. We are praying that this is a true result. He has repeat labs on Friday so we will be more certain then. Last March we had a similiar situation and then he ended up with a shunt infection a few weeks later. At that time he wasn't having weekly labs, and it had only been 3 months since he had the shunt placed. So, a shunt infection isn't as likely this time. However, the yeast that caused his last shunt infection takes a quite a while to rear its ugly head. If Friday's labs come out okay I will feel better. The home healthcare nurse, Terri, has been coming to take his blood pressure twice a week to make sure the steroid isn't causing it to be high. So far, so good. Just the one high reading. Next week at this time, Hayden will be on his last couple of doses. Apparently, steroids stay in your system for a while, so we'll just have to wait and see if the spasms return.

Hayden has really bulked up since he has been on the steroids. You should see this boy's cheeks. They are huge! He is up to 19lbs 15oz. Up from 16lbs 9oz just over a month ago.

Hayden is still refusing to eat anything by mouth. Don't even think about offering him a cup (regular or sippy), you will get quite a pouty lip and some serious tears. I don't think he cries that hard for shots. Every once in a while, I can get him to take some Pediasure orally. That's only because we have a special bottle (the Haberman Feeder) that allows me to squirt the drink into his mouth so all he has to do is swallow. The downfall to this is that he has to be sleepy enough to keep his mouth open, but just awake enough to swallow. We are just beginning to try some mashable foods (bananas, pears, potatoes, etc). He did really well with bananas and pears over the weekend as long as the pieces were really small. With any luck, we will be able to get the pieces bigger so that he will be able to pick them up by himself.

I am anxious to find out what Friday holds. A good looking EEG (for Hayden, that is) and good labs would make this mama very happy.