ER visit for a seizure and bone marrow biopsy results

First let me start out by saying that Chris is ok and was not admitted to the hospital; and he is now taking daily anti-seizure medication.

Friday night I woke up at about 2 a.m. because the bed was shaking.  Chris was having a seizure so I called 911.  The seizure stopped while I was on the phone.  His eyes were open the whole time but he couldn't respond to anything I said to him.  When the 5 EMT people crowded into our small hotel room about 10 minutes later he was able to respond to their questions correctly.  He was a bit disoriented and scared but alert.  He felt well enough for me to drive us the 4 blocks to MD Anderson's ER.  We didn't want him in the ambulance filled with tons of germs with his counts so low, nor the charge for a 4 block ambulance ride.

We arrived at the ER close to 3 a.m. and they discharged him about 14 hours later, close to 5 p.m.  He had bloodwork, a head CT, an EKG, and an EEG.  EEG is a test that measures electrical impulses in the brain and it can detect seizure activity.  Chris has not had a seizure before this one and thankfully he hasn't had once since yesterday morning either.  

The head CT came back normal and the EEG didn't show any seizure activity at the time it was done.  He saw 2 different neurologists and he was put on an anti-seizure medication.

The neurologist said the seizure is from the brain injury he sustained in January of 2007.  As scar tissue develops it increases the risk of seizures and the neurologist said since it has been about 3 years from the date of his traumatic brain injury it wasn't surprising that he had a seizure.  So it is not related to his leukemia or treatment for leukemia.  He will have a follow up appointment with a neurologist here in about 2 weeks.  

It was a very scary experience for both of us.  When he seized he bit down very hard on his inside lower lip and tongue and those areas are in rough shape.  They are quite painful and make eating difficult.  I got him some over the counter mouth numbing ointments which seem to help.  It will take extra long to heal since his counts are low.  He ended up getting a platelet transfusion in the ER because they were quite low.

Soon after his discharge we went to sleep and got a good 10 hours of sleep.  He wasn't feeling too great today and moved slower to get to his blood draw and IV meds appointment.  Thankfully he is done with one of his daily IV meds, the antibiotic for the blood infection.  He is now back on his daily pill antibiotic which means he just has the daily hour long IV infusion for his anti-fungal med.  He didn't need blood or platelets today so it was only an hour in the infusion room!  

His white blood cell count is up to 0.4 today - the highest it's been since February 1st!  Hopefully it will keep climbing!

Chris had a bone marrow biopsy on a few days ago and the Dr. told us the results on Thursday.  The biopsy he had about 3 weeks ago showed he had 71% blasts in his marrow, this weeks test showed it has gone down to 17%, a good decrease! Anything below 5% is considered remission.  

He will have another bone marrow biopsy in a few days.  Depending upon the results he may be starting the 2nd round of the augmented hyper-cvad chemo as soon as the end of next week.  For now we are planning on being here in Houston another 3-4 weeks.  We should know more by the end of the week.  

Two friends drove down from Wichita to other day for a quick visit.  Chris is feeling well enough that we are going to visit his favorite Cajun restaurant here - the Ragin' Cajun.  It's nice to socialize with some non-medical staff, that's for sure.  

I also made friends with another caregiver thru the leukemia support group that meets at MD Anderson every two weeks.  Her husband also has ALL and they are from out-of-state and have been here nearly a month.  They have a son Magnus' age as well as two older children (15 & 21) who are being cared for by other family while they are here.  We ran into them at MD Anderson today so we got to meet each other's husbands today too.  It's been helpful to have a new friend who is going thru the same thing - we checkup on each other almost everyday.