The leaves have fallen down. Trees are pretty bare, but the hills and mountains were pretty here while it lasted. Fall has brought with it a few changes for us. Ian has been having more seizures. One in July. One in August. Two in September. Six in October (4 of them within a week at the worst of it). The last several have nearly broken my heart. He yells out and we come running. He is often sitting bolt upright in bed and he looks terrified as it begins. I know he can feel them coming and is frightened. We now have him on some anti-seizure medication and things seem to be going pretty well. It's been nearly a week with no seizures (6 days and counting) and he's been on this dosage for 5. We were warned that the medication could make him more agitated -- obsessively so -- but we've seen nothing like that. In fact, he's been almost euphoric. He's been waking us up giggling, cackling hysterically for no reason, nearly falling out of his chair at meal times. Everything is just funny. I had to take him out of Sacrament Meeting during the Sacrament hymn today because things were too loudly amusing to allow any semblance of reverance for those around us. I took him out in the hall and quietly spoke to him about being reverent and quiet during Sacrament and how we couldn't scream and be loud. After it was over and we were preparing to go back in, I asked him if he could be quiet and reverent. He just looked at me with this impish grin and didn't make a sound.
Yesterday as I was feeding him breakfast we were talking about how he used to wake us when he was tiny -- laughing happily in his crib. When he was a little older, he'd stand at the gate in his room and call, "MA!" As I said this, ten-year-old Ian looked straight at me and said, "Mmmaaamm." I was elated. We repeated the exchange, laughing, about 5 more times. You have no idea how beautiful it is to hear your child say your name for the first time in YEARS! The simple things in life...(that I appreciate more because I get to be Ian's mom)...
I don't know that euporia is a side-effect of the medication or if it's just that he feels better than he has for a long time. Perhaps he's sleeping more restfully than he has for months or even years -- the seizure activity could have been disrupting his sleep even when it didn't manifest itself as a full-blown grand mal seizure. And as we, as a family, have realized when Ian is happy and doing well the whole world looks better!
Anya is doing well also. Though he school year is just not what last year was (not every teacher can be an Amy Gorum!), she is enjoying it ... especially playing with the boys on the boys' team. They're more interesting, apparently, and she joins them whenever she can. She also continues to crack us up. Last week was Grandpa David's birthday and she made him a diagram of The Life Cycle of Everyone (in 2 pages). It was hilarious! I made Clayton keep a copy before we sent it away.
Anyway, life is good. We love our kids. They make us laugh!
