Kepp-RAGE and Emotional Breakdowns

Sierra has been on Keppra (aka KeppRage) since her diagnosis. We have had sleepless nights, anger, and full-on war temper tantrums. These are well-known side effects of the Keppra but the Dr. insisted that this was the medicine to start with because of her high risk for the tonic clonic, or grand mal, seizures. We really tried to deal with it, but after 4 weeks enough was enough! The medicine wasn’t stopping the seizures and was causing more problems than I could handle. All three of us were ready to pull our hair out.

The Dr. has now prescribed Zarontin, so we are now slowly adding the new medicine and will be reducing the Keppra on Friday to half-dose. We still have 10 more days until she is off the Keppra and on full-dose Zarontin. This means that we are unfortunately dealing with the side effects of two medications, not just one. Which leads me to today.

Sierra has recently become aware of the cartoon Pokemon. It has almost become an addiction for her because that is all she ever wants to watch anymore. Thanks Netflix 😦 lol. Well, today she was watching an episode that could be considered sad if you had been paying attention since the beginning. Butterfree (a type of butterfly) had been caught by Ash (main character) as a Caterpie (caterpillar) and had now transformed twice, much like a caterpillar would in the real world. Well this episode had Butterfree leaving Ash to find a mate and start a family. Sierra started bawling! I mean full-on gut wrenching sobs that broke my heart. I asked her what was wrong and her reply was “I don’t want Butterfree to leave!”

I tried to explain that Caterpie was similar to a baby, Metapod was like the teenager, and Butterfree would be considered an adult. I told her that she would grow up to be an adult one day and would leave to get married and start a family. This only made her cry harder! She climbed up into my lap and told me that she didn’t want to be an adult and that she never wanted to leave. She had a complete emotional breakdown and all I could do was hold my baby girl.

She passed out for a nap not long after this. Her little body just wore out from being so upset. She had already had two seizures earlier in the day and then this episode. I wish I could take it away and just let her be a happy little girl 😦