It feels safe to post this

For the last seven years the month of October has been pretty challenging as far as R.'s behavior. Every year saw a huge uptick in seizures and disregulation and psychosis. One Halloween we spent in the hospital while A. managed to get costumes together for the younger ones. October truly became a month I didn't look forward to and had learned to just expect that I would be sitting on the couch for much of the time helping R. stay as regulated as possible. Last year was the worst we had experienced and was the beginning of the long road back to the ER on New Year's Eve. 

But that particular ER trip brought us to the miracle working neurologist who was able to recognize H.'s seizures and psychosis were an actual epileptic condition. We spent a month tweaking some new meds and R. has had nearly a full year of being seizure free.

Both J. and I were feeling a little trepidatious about October. That month has been so bad for so long we little dated to hope that the new meds would even be able to handle it. But here we are on November 2 after a completely normal month. It still feels a little too good to be true. I honestly don't feel as though miracle is too big a word to describe how we view this. 

Of course, the medications are critical. So earlier this week when I call to check on the status of one I had a very, very bad moment when the pharmacy clerk brightly tells me, "Oh, we didn't fill that because that medicine is back ordered to December." 

Believe it or not I remained coherent, but it was touch and go. (But not coherent enough to ask when... if ever... they were going to inform me of this since it is a medicine needed for seizure control and one you can't go off cold turkey.) Then I got to play "Hunt the medicine at a different pharmacy" for the second time in a two week period. I did find some and we were able to fill the prescription. But our medical system is well and truly broken. If you don't believe me then you can count yourself lucky that you are healthy and have no use for it. In my panic, I was mentally tallying up all the people I know who live in other countries in case I had to resort to finding the medicine that way. Yes, it is absolutely that vital to R.'s well being. The pharmacist who helped me switch the prescription was probably a little overwhelmed by how often I thanked him. 

Here's to many more sane Octobers in our future.

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