Medication - Day 13

Tonight, I am thankful for Trileptal, Austin's medication. Brian and Austin are spending the night at Matt and Paula's house and I know Austin is up later tonight than normal. Without this medication, we would be VERY nervous about a seizure happening and he probably wouldn't have been allowed to sleep over there. The seizures seem to happen late at night as he's falling asleep and since the first two have happened, we have tried to keep him on an earlier schedule as far as bedtimes go. We've had a few nights where his medication has been tested and thankfully, no seizures. Brian and I still worry, but we trust his medication enough to not let the worry get in the way completely. We really want him to be a kid and have sleep overs and stay up late every now and then.

Our biggest problem with his medication is a side effect that is fairly common with seizure meds...moodiness. The kid is having a hard time with this side affect and it seems to only be getting worse. He can lose it at the smallest things right now and I feel like we are getting a glimpse of the teenage years. Yes, that's how moody he's been. Today, he bawled over having to put on socks before going outside. Yes, lost it over socks. He gets a pretty bad attitude at times as well. It doesn't ever seem to matter about time of day or well rested vs. tired. Of course, it does get worse if he's tired, but we have problems even when he's well rested.

The good thing is that he's only acting like this at home and is holding it together at school. If it comes to the point where he can't hold it together at school, we'll start looking into changing things up. We don't want him to start getting into trouble at school and then hate school because he's always getting into trouble.

It's also good that his seizures have stayed away at a very low dosage. We are hoping that things even out and that Trileptal is the only medication we have to try out. Even with the moodiness, I am SO thankful to have something that is working. If for anything, so he can be a normal kid and not have to worry about what might happen if he stays up a couple of hours too late. Well, other than being a little more tired the next morning!