Hospital again

On Monday, Kataraina was admitted to Starship Children's Hospital after having approximately 11 seizures between Sunday afternoon 30 Oct and Monday morning.

At the time of admission, Dr Callum Wilson had actually left for Sydney for a few months, I think on a type of secondment. So the Paediatric Metabolic team at Starship, along with neurologists and metabolic nurses are looking after her.

It was thought initially that it may be because she has grown and gained weight that it was time for her medication to be adjusted. So they monitored her seizure activity on Monday and then began the Vigabatrim on Tuesday. On Wednesday or Thursday they started her on Dextramethorphan as well, on top of the Clonazepam and Sodium Benzoate that she was already taking.

After I finished work tonight, I went to visit her for the first time all week. Because of work and an end-of-year Law exam, I hadn't been able to go up and see her until tonight.

She has been asleep for 72hrs, stopped crying on Tuesday, and I feel like she's grown heaps since I last saw her - even though that was only a week ago!

They have said that if she is still not showing signs of improvement by Mon/Tues, they will do an EEG so they can figure out if it's the drugs making her sleepy or if she is having seizures in her sleep that are hidden to the eye.

Hopefully they can find the right balance of medicines to bring her back out of her mental and physical prison. We find ourselves waiting, once again - and all too soon - for Baby Kataraina to open her eyes.

The photo is of Kataraina and her Aunty Viv.