A new week

Monday morning at 1:00am sleeping beauty decided to awaken !  And 3 and 4 and 5am too.

Once we were up for the day I noticed that her clonidine patch was laying in her bed.  I have no idea how long it was off for and what that would mean for her behavior and blood pressure for the day, but we got a new one on as quickly as we could.

Turns out she awoke from her 3 day slumber in a very happy mood.  The behavior analyst attempted to do a Functional Analysis on her but of course sweet girl cooperated beautifully and didn't give in to their attempts to contrive situations that would bring out her behavioral issues.  She really is so stubborn!

She continued to have hardly any appetite on Monday.  I was hoping that she hadn't eating much since Thursday because she was so sleepy, but despite being wide awake Monday she still pretty much refused every bite I offered her.  And this girl loves her food, so it's not like her at all.  What's interesting is that her weight was up again on Monday to 18.3kg.  It's definitely not coming from nutrition, just not sure if it's from fluid retention or a med side effect. 

Monday night they started weaning her Risperdal dose.  She had started that med the night before her previous admission and we never really saw any effect from it.  Then about 2 weeks ago at a clinic visit they increased it but it clearly still didn't help because we ended up back here in the hospital anyway.  So it makes sense to wean her off it.  We continue to pray that the new med, Depakote, is the answer to solving Audra's troubles (abnormal EEG, sleep disturbance and behavior concerns).

There isn't much to report from Tuesday other than thankfully the blood work to check for a Pheochromocytoma (adrenal tumor) came back negative. 

After rounds with the doctor today the plan is:
1. increase her dose of Depakote today
2. finalize a plan for weaning off the Risperdal
3. discharge her tomorrow morning in time for her to make her scheduled neurology appointment--we are still waiting for the results of the blood work that was sent to Mayo Clinic when she saw neurology on May 4th

Now I need to get on the phone with her nursing agency to see if they can hopefully find her a new home care nurse soon.  The one she had quit the company the day after Audra was admitted.  I'm not sure that I ever posted about Audra getting home nursing care services, so I guess that's a post for another day. 

Next post from home hopefully {fingers crossed}