Skip to main content

Mrs. Lincoln and my seizure

On Monday, January 20, 2014, I had a seizure and I spent the night at Saint Alphonsus in Boise.

My strokes happened two years ago, and I had no idea that a seizure would be a possibility afterwards.  It would have been great to have forewarning because this was a shock emotionally and physically.

Seizures are bouts of disorganized electrical activity in the brain. They can happen spontaneously (primary seizures) or from brain damage (due to stroke).

Seizures come in different flavors. Last week, I lost consciousness. In May, I had an "incident" that resembled a seizure. I never lost consciousness, and I described my symptoms in detail. I had an aura on my right side, and it seemed that my right side vision was disrupted. It almost seemed that my right vision was a memory like a two second delay.  Even though I described that vividly, the doctors did not seem to know what happened.

Instead, they prescribed anti-seizure medication, Keppra, even though they said it was not a seizure.  The side effects were horrible. They included

"Throat Irritation, Drowsiness, Dizzy, Head Pain, Feeling Weak, Feeling Restless, Depression, Mood Changes, Anxious, Sensation of Spinning or Whirling, Low Energy, Pain, Loss of Appetite, and Easily Angered or Annoyed."

So, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?

I talked to my regular doctor last summer after the "incident," and I told him that the side effects of Keppra were disabling. He said, "You did not have another stroke or a seizure. It is crazy to take that drug when you do not need to."

Later that summer, my neurologists seemed to agree and I quit taking the drug.

But last Monday it all changed. I had the symptoms in May and last week: I had an aura which is a perceptual disturbance experienced by some seizures before either the headache or seizure begins. It often manifests as the perception of a strange light and or confusing thoughts or experiences.  

Last week, my doctors told me that an aura is common when you have a seizure. It would have been helpful for me to know that last May when I described those symptoms.

Last week, I started to take Keppra and the side effects started to happen again. I have been miserable. Certainly, I need to take a pill to stop seizures, but what is the cost of my quality of life? Not just my life…my families’ life also.

Two days ago, we saw my neurologist again. There are other alterative medications I can try. And I will. All drugs have side effects, and I need to balance the medications to make sure they are effective but also do not make me a crazed zombie. When we were leaving her office, her partner seemed surprised that we will try a different drug. 

What I have realized, doctors are educated guessers. Until you have a stroke or a seizure, you have no idea what a person goes through. You are scared. You are confused.  You are mad. You are sad.

Every day you worry that it will happen again and be worse.

Every day. 

It would be easy to give up I suppose. But, I cannot live my life in fear. I am simply pissed off about my bodies limitations. 

Strokes: The gift that keeps giving. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Two Faces of the American Dream

The massive wave of Norwegian immigration to Minnesota from the 1850s through the early 20th century wasn't a casual choice; it was an escape from crushing land scarcity and economic desperation.  My ancestors, the Dunhams, arrived in 1851 and built a life in Otter Tail County in Minnesota. My great-great-grandfather, Jens Christian Dunham, didn’t just survive—he thrived. He served in the Minnesota legislature as a Republican from 1888 to 1890 and later became a staunch advocate for President Teddy Roosevelt. He was the literal embodiment of the American Dream: an immigrant who fled poverty to become a lawmaker in his new home. Fast forward a century, and a new wave of immigrants—this time from Somalia—is following that exact same blueprint. Like the Norwegians before them, they fled hardship to build a future in Minnesota, and many have run for office to serve the state that welcomed them. Yet, the political rhetoric surrounding these two groups couldn't be more polarized. Don...
Post a Comment
Read more

Phantom Blindness and Taking a Break after Strokes

I met with my eye doctor last week about taking some time off from my vision therapy. I have been doing therapy since my stroke almost two and a half years ago. I am tired, and a need a break. My doctor said, “This is completely understandable. Take some time off.” At the appointment, my doctor tested my vision. Because of the strokes, my vision was affected, and I have a problem in my field of vision on the right side. I have a deficit with my right side peripheral vision. However, it is getting better. During the test, I told him that I “sense things on the right side of my peripheral vision.” It seems that I know that something is there, but I cannot really distinguish what it is. He told me that there is a body of thought describing phantom vision or phantom blindness. A Polish researcher, L. Bieganowski, described this phantom blindness this way:    “The subject of the paper is the phenomenon of phantom vision. It occurs among the blind (or almost blind...
Post a Comment
Read more

Greek orthodox and Catholic‘s

Being a history buff, I’ve always understood that the Catholic Church was split in about 1000 A.D. Our Greek tour guide mentioned the differences a little bit yesterday, but she did not capture the full history. Today I saw a small Greek orthodox by the roadside and I’m going to insert about the history. Eastern Orthodox Catholics and Roman Catholics are the result of what is known as the East-West Schism (or Great Schism) of 1054, when medieval Christianity split into two branches. The Byzantine split with Roman Catholicism came about when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as Holy Roman Emperor in 800. From the Byzantine viewpoint, this was a slap to the Eastern Emperor and the Byzantine Empire itself — an empire that had withstood barbarian invasions and upheld the faith for centuries. After Rome fell in 476, Byzantium was the only vestige of the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne’s crowning made the Byzantine Emperor redundant, and relations between the East and...
1 comment
Read more