Olivia's doctor appt yesterday was nothing. It was pretty much just her regular 3 month check up. They did her normal blood draw and will test that not only for everything they usually check, but will also check the med levels of her new seizure med and will check for sensitivity toward a new medicine. They want to switch the medicine they placed her on over a year ago. This is the one that was causing her low white blood count. It also has seizures as a possible side effect.

Does that mean that that is what her seizures are from? Not necessarily. With her history and everything there are just too many risk factors to say for certain what could have caused them, but it IS a possibility. The new medicine has an extreme sensitivity in about 1-2% of the population. They used to just have to start someone on the meds and wait and see, but they have JUST developed a way to check the blood for something that determines this sensitivity, which is great. So, she will be starting on the new med once the test determines she's not one of the 1-2%. The thing that really stinks is that the new med is a liquid! :( We were done with those and on all pills which has been so freeing! Such a bummer!

I also talked with them about a report I just read Friday that came out on Thursday. It listed 11 antiepileptic meds in a study that found a link between those and a higher increase in depression and suicidal thoughts. Of course Olivia's med is one of those studied. It sounded in the report like even the ones not tested would most likely have the same outcome, however. The report actually made sense to me in a way. The past few weeks while she has been on her new med she has shown a preoccupation with death and dying. Not in the way a teen or adult would, but it's definately there. She came down crying and crying one night because she had had a dream where she grew up and I died right away. She has also been overheard playing with Braeden and talking of death in the play. In the car the other day they were playing and she said that "They have four kids, but one of them died so they only have 3 now." We have talked about death in an occasional talk previously, but this is way beyond. Of course this is extremely concerning and I was able to have her leave the room with our social worker at the hospital for a while as I discussed this with her nurse practitioner. She paged the NP of neurology, but no response. She is going to talk about it with her and get back to me. Two years on a med that is already showing this is scary.