Thanksgiving 2013

Well, this was an eventful one.
Maya, John, and I started the day with the local 2 mile turkey trot.  John ran for the first quarter mile, then walked pretty much the rest of the way.   Sometimes, he wouldn't even walk:

We got through it just fine and it was a nice way to start the day.

Then we had a nice early dinner with the extended family.   We had do duct tape the oven closed to do the cooking as John has jumped on the open oven door enough that it doesn't close properly anymore.

Also, the toilet didn't work as John decided to put a couple of bars of soap in it.

After dinner we took Maya up to Big Al's in Vancouver to meet her friend.  John absolutely insisted on taking a turkey wing with him.  I didn't want him eating it in the car but he fought enough that I gave in.  After dropping Maya off John decided to stuff his mouth with the turkey wing, bones and all.  He choked on it.  I had to pull the car over and it gave us a little scare, but he seemed OK after that.  It soon became apparent that something was stuck in his throat, though.   It was causing him some pain every time he tried to swallow and it generally subdued him.
We tried to get it dislodged but eventually had to give up.  Yoshie took him to urgent care while I was back in Vancouver picking up Maya.   Urgent care was closed so they went to the ER at Providence.
I met them there and we got taken back after about an hour of waiting.  That was about 7pm.
We had the typical LONG wait in the ER triage room.   He got some x-rays taken and they decided there "might" be something in there.    Unfortunately it was deep and required general anesthesia to get at,  so we had to wait for an OR room and for the on-call doctor and nurse to show up.   I think it was about 11:30 when he finally got wheeled back.

I had to go in to the OR with them to help hold him down so they could put the gas mask on him.  He's super strong and it takes several adults to restrain him.
It only took the doctor about 15 minutes to find the piece and bring it out to show us.  It was just about 1.5 cm long but was sharp and had lodged itself in to his esophagus.

He said it put a small hole through his esophagus but that it should heal quickly.

It took John quite awhile to come out of the anesthesia, as always.   But, as soon as he was awake he was tearing off his IV and bracelet.   We were still hopeful that we wouldn't have to stay the night but he was so tired from everything that we ended up having to stay overnight.  He finally got to sleep around 2am.  I stayed with him and didn't get much sleep at all of course.
When he woke up in the morning, he was much better and we were able to go home almost immediately.

Once home, I guess he was starving as he stuffed his mouth with mashed potatoes:

His drug schedule got messed up and the result was that he had a big 2:15 seizure soon after this.  

Seizure video

It's really hard to get video of a seizure.  They come on so randomly and obviously grabbing a camera is not the first thing on your mind when it happens.  But, I did manage to get the very tail end of a pretty big one last week.

Cannabis

I've mentioned it before, but we've started John on cannabis.  It is legal in Oregon, and we are properly licensed to both administer it for John and grow it.  Of course I don't have the foggiest idea how to grow it and I hope I don't ever have to, but if it proves helpful I think we'll end up on that path.   The problem is that you cannot find the correct strain in any of the dispensaries in Oregon.  What we want is a very high CBD to THC ratio.   It's the THC that makes you high, and so this is what everyone wants.  A CBD only strain has little value for anyone except those suffering from seizures.   There just isn't a big enough market for the growers.  Plus, it is apparently a hard strain to grow and is very expensive.
So, for now we are giving John a 1:1 ratio of CBC:THC.  It's not ideal, but we're actually hopeful that the THC might help with his hyperactivity anyway.
We get it from a local dispensary already in liquid form (it comes in a honey/glycerin base).  We've always given him his pills with honey anyway so it was pretty easy to add a little of this to the mix.  We are starting slow of course, and haven't seen any improvement yet.  At least we don't think so.   John does NOT have as many daily seizures as before but the ones he does have are big.  Not sure if that is an improvement or not.