More seizures in hospital

As you will know, Abigail was re-admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich on Thursday after a routine consultant clinic appointment brought fears that Abby was fitting again. Since then, she has been in a high-dependency room on the children's ward and is back on an oxygen saturation and heart rate monitor. She was also put straight on to a course of anti-convulsant medication – you may remember that her drugs had originally been stopped a week or so before her discharge. This time she was put on a different drug to try and stabilise the fitting she is experiencing. Doctors also planned to carry out another EEG brain scan at King’s College Hospital.

Since Thursday the news has not been good. Abby is definitely fitting quite regularly and her saturation levels have been dropping such that she has had to be given oxygen at least once. The new drug that doctors have put Abigail on doesn’t seem to be controlling the fitting and there is the possibility that she will have to be prescribed a different drug again in order to control it. One fit last night was severe enough to warrant an immediate dose of a stronger one-off anti-convulsant. Since the medication has made Abby so sleepy again, her feeding has not been going well and she is back on a naso-gastric tube for her milk. This is a big setback after Nix had struggled for so long to get Abby onto normal bottles and teats.

Doctors still don't have a date for an EEG scan but will chase King’s for a date on Monday. When Abigail was admitted on Thursday her consultant originally said she expected her to be in until this coming Monday (3rd) but that’s looking very unlikely now. The shock off having Abigail back in hospital and the pressure that brings with visiting and managing home life is now far worse than it ever was before we brought her home. Rebekah and Joshua are asking where Abby is and have become very clingy again.

To be honest, Nix and I are not coping at all well with this major setback. For the first month or so of Abby’s life we were told to take each day one at a time. Right now we just have to take each hour one at a time in terms of our ability to see beyond the horizon.