Absence seizure

Jason started to taper down the prednisone in middle of September.  Only this time, doctors decided to do “chronic taper”; which means… it will take long.  The decision was made because of the last taper didn’t work too well for him.   GVHD came back too soon.  This time, he is alternating 100mg and 20mg every other day for a few weeks, and 100mg and 10mg… and so on until February (at this point).

From previous experiences of prednisone, I thought he would be jumpy, obnoxious and hyper.  Not this time. This high and low prednisone has been making him more tired and in pain.  And this is what happened on last Wednesday.

He didn’t sleep well that night.  He had chills and mild fever (37.8F).  He came downstairs by 8am, got his newspaper, and started to read.  He said he was feeling better.   About 8:15 am, suddenly he said “I feel queasy”.   I was hurrying up making lunch for kids for school and just looked up to see what he was going to do.   Jason was still sitting on the chair, gazing straight forward.  I thought he was thinking if he was going to throw up.  I asked him if he was going to do it.  He didn’t say a word.  I looked up again, and asked him if he was OK.  This time, his face was pale… I told him he didn’t look good.  He didn’t say anything.  Finally I realized he wasn’t there.  It happens a lot that he just doesn’t hear me (husband & wife thing; as most of married people would know), but this was not it.  I ran to him and tried to lean him toward me, but he was… stiff.  I grabbed him by his head with my arm (like head-lock), and yelled at Ty to go get help.  He ran to the paper towels in the kitchen; he must thought Jason had thrown up.  No, No!!!  I told Ty to go get help next door (I didn't think I could call 911 if Jason fell on me).   As Ty was running toward the door, Jason came back and asked me where Ty was going.   I helped Jason walked to the couch, and he lay down.  Our kind neighbor came right over, and made sure we were OK. 

We had a doctor’s appointment the following day.  The doctor suspected it might have been a type of “Absence seizure”.  He ruled out it was not a heart attack or stroke because if it was one of them, he would have fell off from the chair or things would have came out from him (anything you can imagine).  Jason had MRI this week and will have EEG next week.  MRI came back normal.  We don’t know what caused it.   Jason is not allowed to drive for a while- just to be safe.  I don’t think he’s had another episode.  He is still dealing with his ups and downs with prednisone.  Doctor told me to watch him closely, and call them immediately if he is “punky”.  Oh, Punky again… this will be another post.

Next week, we have series of 1 year transplant check ups and reviews; bone marrow biopsy, pulmonary function test (I’ll try to video tape this one- it’s the funniest clinical test you’ve ever seen), oral exam, X-ray and immunization shots, etc.      

Thanks for your support.

Love,

Mayumi