Saturday, August 27th - Day 69 Update

Hey all,

Maria and I spent Friday night with Tori so she decided to stay up with us ALL night to celebrate... She did not sleep at all and we tried several doses of Valium throughout the night in failed attempts to help her. We ended up instructing the nurse to give her Dilaudid at 6:30am and it put her to sleep immediately. Tori was ready and trying to sleep but she had some large Myoclonus tremors occurring in her legs... She could never get comfortable enough to sleep. We haven't really seen any Myoclonic activity during the last couple of weeks so it was surprising to us. So today I asked Dr. Vickroy to compare her current medications to those given at PCMC and see if we are using generic forms of them now. That is one possibility but then I asked to see what Tori's Valproic Acid levels were in her blood. The answer of 50 is probably a much more likely cause of the Myoclonus. Her level should be between 80-100 so a countering dose of Valproate was given this morning and her standard dosage amounts were upped as well. Dr. Vickroy indicated that ones liver will automatically try and lower the level when it is high and this is presumably what happened to Tori since her dosages have been the same for some time.

We let Tori sleep until 12:30pm or so then the therapists got busy again. Today the occupational and speech therapists went through some more tests and exercises. Tomorrow the physical therapist will have her turn. Tori then took another nap from 3:00pm until 6:00pm. She is now watching me type this update and she is wide awake... I need Kourtney and Michelle to come visit tonight because it always seems Tori falls right asleep when they arrive ;-) It happened again when they visited today but we are hoping that sometime in the near future they will catch her in an awake state.

I have also kept Tori's bite guard out for several hours tonight and she seems to be rediscovering her mouth by exploring it with her tongue. She has been rotating it around inside her mouth for quite a while. She continues to enjoy her twice daily tooth brushing and mouth swabbing.

Alright, that is pretty much it for the day since she slept for most of it. I'm flying solo here tonight so I'm hoping she will cooperate and get a good nights rest.

Thank you all once again,

-Tim