Finally Feeling Better

I've got to say that I have never had such a sick household. What was thought to be bacterial infections for me, Mike & Raquel, turned out to be viral, just like Gabby's, so the antibiotics did nothing. Friday afternoon and Saturday, I was completely bedridden, and very fortunate that Raquel wanted to do nothing but sleep, because there was no way I was slightly capable of taking care of her. Thank you, Mom & Dad, for making enough soup to feed all of us for several days and bringing it down with all the other goodies you packed. We really appreciate it - and the last place I wanted to be was in the kitchen.

Raquel has to stay out of school again this week because of her lingering cough. The inhaler does seem to really help, but because she's in the special education class where they have weakend immune systems, she can't expose them to her illness. And the last thing I'd want is for any of those adorable kids to catch what she had. Nurse Janice called to check on her last Friday, concerned that she was having a reaction to the Depakote. She was very surprised when I told her she'd developed pneumonia.

Speaking of Depakote, I had to lower the dose while she was on the course of antibiotics because she was becoming way too lethargic and it was getting really hard to distinguish whether or not it was illness related or medicine related. I did notice that her night-time sleeping changed a bit once I stopped giving her the nightly dose. She seemed very unsettled in her sleep. I'll continue to document the changes I'm noticing as she gets back on track.

I also received the book I ordered on LKS. Since the condition is so rare, information on it is pretty limited. This book - called The Official Parent's Sourcebook On Landau-Kleffner Syndrome by James N. Parker, M.D. - is basically just a reference manual for self-directed research. It provides web listings and directories that do not come up during regular internet searches. Looks like I've got a lot of reading and searching and learning to do.

One of my concerns so far is her speech therapy. If she does in fact have LKS, the main thing that is stressed is the importance of productive speech therapy. This obviously is not happening at school, where she wants absolutely nothing to do with her therapist. So, I'm beginning to wonder about resuming in-home sessions. Guess I need to call Regional and see how I would go about doing so.

Besides all that, I'm very happy that things are getting somewhat back to normal around here - and love seeing all the smiles and bright faces on my girls.