I never know how to give an update on how Lauren is doing?! She had been doing so well these past few weeks with only an occasional grandmal in her sleep. Then this week she started having numerous (4-5) grandmals a night. She also is sick with a little cold so we are hoping that is the cause. It is so hard with 6 kids to keep her from getting sick, but it really has such a huge impact on her.
Overall she is still doing so much better. This past week I was looking at pictures of this past fall and found some pictures of Lauren in the hospital when she was in "status" (non-stop seizures). We felt like we lived at Primary Children's hospital with 10-11 day hospitalizations every month.

These are the pictures of Lauren in the hospital on Halloween last year (Oct 08). Totally non-responsive, feeding tube, going from seizure to seizure.










Seeing these pictures makes me feel so grateful for how she is doing now. These past few months she has been improving and developing so much. The hard part for Marc and I is knowing how fast things can change back to "bad". Almost with no warning. So as much as we feel blessed and happy that she is doing so much better, the scared feeling in the pit of our stomach does not go away.

We really feel like we are getting closer to finding the right combination of treatmeant for Lauren. We know that ketogenic diet is working, it has just taken awhile to get her body use to everything. She is such an amazing child that is so strong. We are so hopeful that some day she will beat this aweful "beast"( another word used to describe Doose Syndrome) that took over her brain 16 months ago.


Here is a video talking about epilepsy
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#30742751