As promised, yesterday after naptime, I bundled the boys up and we headed out to play in the snow.  Drake had a wonderful time...for about 10 minutes.  The little stinker refused to keep his gloves on.  He had great fun immitating his brothers' efforts to make snow angels and then throwing "snow balls."  But once his hands were painfully cold, he began crying and we were done.  Poor little guy cried for about 15 minutes, grabbing his beloved blanky and heading upstairs to cuddle in bed for a few minutes.  There were a few moments while outside that he sort of spaced out and was very slow to respond to me.  Left me wondering if he was having small seizures and I the crying inside was a bit "odd"...left me wondering if it was actually seizure related as well.  I hate that every little thing that is different leaves me wondering if it's related to seizures.  :(

Drake's seizures are on the increase again.  He's been acting a bit spacey most days and we think we're seeing several absence seizures daily again.  Wednesday night he had a pretty nasty seizure that started in the bath (OMG those are scary!); it required Diastat to stop it - the second time this month.  The neurologist ordered more blood work to see what's going on with his med levels.  We see the Neurologist next week to review last monthes video EEG, discuss the recent changes and decide where we go from here.  It's always a roller coaster with Dravet.

This morning we went to get that blood work done.  We've been to the lab enough now that the techs new who we were the moment we walked in.  They were thrilled to meet Sushi.  It was the least stressful trip to the lab ever - thanks to tethering!  Usually Drake is all over the place, climbing on people and trying to get back behind the desk to "help" the techs as I'm filling out paperwork.  Today, Drake was tethered to Sushi, so he couldn't wander. They both did wonderful.

Afterwards we went to Panera for hot chocolate and coffee.  Again, a wonderful experience thanks to Sushi.  I left Drake tethered while we sat at the table, and while Drake got up from the table several times, he couldn't get very far.  Realizing that he wasn't going to be able to just wander and say hello to all the business people there, he eventually laid down on the floor and cuddled with Sushi.  One very kind woman stopped by our table to ask about Sushi and Drake.  She told me she is a speech pathologist and works with deaf children.  She was amazed by Sushi and how much she was clearly helping Drake (and me).  It was so wonderful to be able to sit and have an actual conversation with someone while out with Drake - in the past I would have been so stressed from chasing him down and would have given up 10 minutes into the trip and headed home.

We've got a bit of snow here.  In the past, Drake has despised being in the cold and snow, but today he was showing a definite interest in it.  I think we're going to bundle up and go play in it for a bit now that he's up from his nap. :)

We had plans to go out last night with a couple other families.  We were going to take the kids to a giant indoor playground place (bounce houses, swing sets, slides, etc) and then dinner.  Sadly, DC has come down with the cold the rest of us had last week, so he wasn't feeling up to going.  I was feeling brave, so I decided to take the boys on my own.  I am SO thankfully that Kevin is old enough and has matured so much in the last year that I didn't have to worry about him at all.  He took off playing the moment we got there and found me about every 15 minutes or so just to check in.  Drake was a little yo yo - he couldn't decide what he wanted to do, so he ran from one activity to the next at lightning speed while Sushi and I tried to keep up (difficult to do with the swarms of kids that were constantly attached to the dog!).  I didn't mind all of the uninvited attention Sushi received though - she behaved beautifully (other than trying to climb into a couple people's laps when they paid attention to her) and it was a great opportunity to talk a bit about 4 Paws and epilepsy.  I wish I had info cards I could have just handed to people though - I never managed to finish a conversation because Drake would be running off in the opposite direction again.  Add it to my to-do list I suppose.  Feeling REALLY brave, I decided to go ahead and give dinner out a shot as well.  There were five adults, five children and a service dog at our table at Max & Erma's.  Sushi again impressed me to no end.  I hadn't even given her the "under" command yet and she was under the table and getting situated.  She hardly moved the entire time we were there - even when I had to get up to chase down Drake who wanted to wander off and visit with all the other restaurant patrons every now and then.  At one point, tired of chasing him down, I suggested that Drake crawl under the table with Sushi (an idea I had received from another 4 Paws family) and to my surprise, he climbed right down, layed his head on her belly and snuggled with her for several minutes.  We were all exhausted when we finally arrived home.  But I'm thrilled to say, WE DID IT!  No major meltdowns, no major seizure activity (there were a few brief absence seizures, but that's pretty typical again these days), nobody got hurt or lost.  I'd call that a success.

I've been trying to write this entry for a week now.  Seems something always happens right after I sit down to type and I get pulled away.  Hopefully today I can finish it...even if I don't, I will post as much as I manage to type up at least. :)

I can hardly believe it's already been over three weekssince we brought Sushi home.  We've been busy busy busy!

Only three days after returning home, we had to pack up and head to the hospital for a scheduled 72 hour EEG.  Sushi Drake and I spent three days in the hospital, with Drake's head connected to a computer by dozens of tiny electrodes.  Sushi did great in the hospital - considering there was little room for her to play/let off some steam!  Drake managed far better than I could have dreamed as well.  Though about 40 hours into the testing, he developed a nasty stomach bug that resulted in vomitting and therefore not getting his seizure meds and that resulted in several seizures; good for capturing on EEG, but not good for a mommy's nerves!  I can't say I noticed Sushi alerting to these, but in retrospect, it seems like she may have been pacing the room a bit beforehand and was very anxious and kept trying to run down the hall as nurses/doctors entered the room during them.  Then again, that could have just been due to all the commotion of so many people coming in and out of the room.  Anyway, we all survived our three days there. :)

Then we had a few days for last minute preperation for Christmas.  Spent Christmas Eve at my parents home - dinner and opening presents.  I'm so thankful that they live in the same town!!  I had really hoped Drake would start to understand the concept of presents and Santa this year, but he showed no real interest again.  He did open a couple presents at my parents house and of course, once he came across something he liked, he just wanted to play with it.  Kevin however is a pro at presents now.  He whipped through his before I realized what was happening! lol  After getting home and the boys tucked into bed, Santa made his appearance.  The boys woke Christmas morning the find a small trampoline under the tree.  It had pillow pets and their stockings on it and Drake couldn't wait to throw that stuff aside so he could jump. :)  We waited a bit for my parents to arrive, then got into the gifts.  Poor Drake had no interest.  Grandpa was able to get him to open a few and then they sat and played with his puzzle and big nesting blocks while the rest of us did our thing.  And about the time that was all over, my sister and her three teenagers arrived.  To say there was chaos is an understatement.  I'm really surprised Drake handled it so well; you could tell he was totally overstimulated, but not a single seizure or meltdown resulted.  A Christmas miracle!  Sushi on the other hand was very confused and had a terrible time with obedience through all of this.  As difficult as it was for us, we tried to be consistent and not let her get away with breaking commands - that meant a LOT of constant corrections and reinforcement, which made it feel like we were missing out on the joy of the holiday some of the time.  But, we knew letting her just wander and get into things she shouldn't could have devestating consequences the next day (once they get away with a behavior once, dogs tend to repeat it and it becomes much harder to correct - kind of like kids!).  All in all it was a wonderful Christmas; and having Sushi there was a wonderful reminder of the amazing gift you all gave to us!  It's hard to believe that it was only about 6 months ago that we first applied for a service dog...I never dreamed then that she would be here by the end of the year. 

In the week since Christmas we've just been trying to recover a bit from all the time away and the busy holidays.  I'm finally starting to get the house back in some semblance of order and we're working hard to get the boys back into some sort of normal routine.  Drake who never wanted anyone near him when he went to sleep has now decided he can't go to sleep without someone lying next to him.  As wonderful as it is to cuddle with him a bit after two years of him never really wanting to cuddle, it's daunting to have to spend at least an hour just trying to get him to nap and up to two hours trying to get him down for the night.  I had hoped he'd enjoy Sushi's company at sleep time, but she's still too puppy-ish and wants to dig in the bed or find things to chew up; plus Drake's still not real happy most of the time she gets too close, so for now, she sleeps in her kennel in his room.  I hope this will change in the next year and we can transfer his need of having someone lie with him to having Sushi there with him.

I was getting really nervous that by New Years Eve we still had not found time to practice tracking at all.  DCs work schedule has been pretty crazy as he tries to make up for being gone for so long, plus he hates the cold more than any of us, so he's not been too kean on spending time outside. lol  So my mom helped me out with some tracks on NYE.  The first time we tried outside, they weren't hiding where I expected them to be and I didn't really listen to Sushi when she kept trying to go beyond the point I expected them to be - shame on me, because she was right!  The second time she got distracted and I couldn't get her back on the track for anything. :(  So we took a break and then tried one more time.  That time, we both did perfect!  Yeah.  I was so afraid we'd both completely forget how to do it; so glad it only took three tries to get it right.  Later that day we headed to Kohl's to try a couple indoor tracks.  Sushi had really struggled with some of the indoor tracking during training, but she breezed right through them for me this time!  Hooray!  During training we ended up having to stuff tennis balls in Drake's pockets to get her to find him successfully.  We didn't do that this time (though I think she may have seen me passing my mom the hot dog treats before we started. lol); I'm hoping this is a sign that bonding is beginning to happen between the two of them.  Bonding is critical to tracking.

Bonding between Sushi and Drake is going slow, but I am starting to see very possitive signs.  Drake use to scream and cry anytime Sushi got too close and rubbed her nose on him or licked him.  But I've been playing up how fun it is to get kisses from Sushi; and a couple of days ago he started giggling and saying "kisses" when she walked by and licked him.  Now he'll come from another room to tell me Sushi kissed him, instead of running to tell me Sushi was bad or bit him (he'd point to his arm where she sniffed/lick him and say "ashi ight" to say Sushi had bit him - I knew better).  Yesterday we saw a HUGE step forward in the bonding.  Drake was sitting at the table eating a snack.  Sush was across the room lying on her side.  Drake all of a sudden slid down from the table and went to Sushi.  He first tried sitting ON her, lol.  But when I slid him to the floor, he laid back to rest his head on her! He laid there for a minute or two until she started getting wiggly and then they kinda squirmed around "wrestling" with each other - Drake giggling the whole time.  Yeah!  I think he's starting to really like her!! :)

Well, today is back to school day for Kevin.  I need to start getting his school stuff organized and try to get in a shower before the boys wake up.  I'll upload pictures from the last three weeks into the photo section later today - there's too many to post here. :)