Today was my six month follow up with the neurologist about my seizure meds. I had two things I wanted to discuss with her today. One is my daymares which are vivid and I often can’t wake from despite repeated false awakenings in my dreams. This may be caused by the Keppra I am on due to focal seizures. Although it would be unusual for it to cause new symptoms after a year. So, after some discussion about my variety of medications which may be the root of these symptoms, we came up with two plans.

Plan A is for me to reduce my Ambien dose to the new FDA recommendations for woman (5mg rather than my prescribed 10mg.) And go back on brand name Keppra just to be safe. Generic meds have the same primary ingredient as the name brand, but filler ingredients don’t have to be exactly the same. So with medications which affect brain chemistry, my neurologist is more comfortable sticking with brand name when insurance cooperates!
Plan B is to reduce my Keppra (seizure med) dose from 1000mg XR to 750mg XR daily if plan A doesn’t work.

My other question for her was about my frustrations with expressing myself. I tend to be a grammar stickler, but despite repeated rereadings, I am overlooking simple misspellings and misused words in my writing. It is embarrassing and frustrating! I have noticed that in the past year my verbal aphasia has improved significantly, so we are hopeful that my brain will continue rewiring around my necrotic (dead) tumor sites. Speech therapy could help or playing some of the brain games online. We do know that my seizures affected my communication and reading so it makes sense that these areas are the slowest to recover. In the meantime, I shall consider blogging therapy and continue begging forgiveness for my grammar mistakes. It’s all a part of the journey. Isn’t cancer grand?