A Guinea Pig and Mice

Since we've been through lots and lots of drugs it isn't often that Ces' doc will say, "Hey, there's a new one you really should consider trying."  She gave us a script for Fycompa and I had it filled.  But the bottle sat on the kitchen island for two weeks.  Cesare looked up the drug and its side effects (a first!).   Wow.  Just, wow.  We were both taken aback by the long list of possible psychiatric side effects: anger, irritability, hallucinations (of all sorts), suicidal and homicidal ideation.  Most meds have their lists..but I can't remember one that was this impressive.  So, the bottle sat.

I know it was only just approved by the FDA for use in the US and my pharmacist said Ces would be the first to try it in the area.  Hmmm.  A guinea pig.  Ces agreed to give it a go, and he took his first dose two weeks ago.  I've found myself watching him out of the corner of my eye, or worse dead on, waiting for...something.  I realize his head won't explode...but I'm searching him for signs of danger.  Ces is too.  I don't remember having an experience like this before with meds.  I don't know why I'm particularly paranoid about EVERYTHING he does...."hey, maybe that's the meds" ..."or that".  He reported one day feeling an unusual urge to act out at school.  He described it as an inflated ego "I felt so full of myself, like I could do and say whatever I wanted....be disrespectful or disruptive at school and I didn't care what anyone said about it!"  But, restraint carried the day.

Yesterday, my family awoke to gifts, tiny little gifts. Everywhere.  Well, everywhere we left an unwashed dish or a crumb.  Mice.  Now, I can handle seizures and calmly administer oxygen.  I can clean up dog vomit and watch seven seasons of Dexter but I quite simply cannot suffer mice.  My husband insists I am making it up but I swear to God that a mouse ran down my back when I was sleeping several years ago.  Once that happens, believe me when I say, you will never forget it.   I immediately rose to my toes, as if traversing a field of them.  Biting my fingertips and uttering fears of an apocalypse  two octaves higher than is really necessary in this sort of situation, I was inconsolable.  This is not me at my best.  My dear task oriented husband marched off to the hardware store, with his shield in hand and sword raised.  Ces saw him off, wishing him victory in his mice-capturing-apparatus quest.  Successful on his mission, my husband and Cesare did all but dig a moat at the entrance to our bedroom to protect me from what would surely be a stepped up attack against us last night.  I don't think it is foolish to believe, with certainty, that the successful travel down my spine had gotten around in the mice "community".  I imagined bets made that one or another brave mickey soldier could do it again...planting a victorious mini-rodent flag on my butt. 

Why is she talking about mice? I have every intention of bringing us back 'round to the Fycompa.  And it's this: Cesare was very different during this crisis, well, my crisis.  He was problem solving, creatively.   While his dad was at the hardware store, he made several trips to the basement.  First looking for holes that could have been entry points.  But then popping upstairs with a half dozen wild but possible solutions to capturing/killing the invaders.  Throughout the day yesterday and several times today I've witnessed Ces asking questions.  Lots of questions.  It's like his brain is stimulated.  

We increase the meds tonight: titrating up to a therapeutic dosage.  So far, no signs of scary psychiatric intrusions.  And, no sign of my demons last night.  But if I could build him a moat I would.