The End's Coming!

Most of the semester is behind me, and in less than three weeks I'll be home!
The week that is about to start will be only three school days, followed by a four-day weekend for Thanksgiving!
Wednesday there will be a test in Physics, and the Tuesday after Thanksgiving there will be a test in Statics. This way there will be very little new stuff on the finals, plus an extra shot at boosting grades for those who need it - and those who don't.

About a week ago, my hall's RD emailed me, saying that I will not be required to move to the ground floor; it is only a recommendation. He asked me to talk it over with Mom and Dad again, and re-decide whether I should move down. After prayer, thinking about it, and a couple calls on Skype, we agreed that it would be best to wait until Spring Break, a weeklong time off in the middle of next semester, to see if I really need to move down, and move down then if need be. My friends on my floor are happy about this!

I've had no seizures since that last one in class, so my seizure activity in this semester could be seen in two ways:
1 - 9 seizures total, more than either of the previous two semesters (I think), and pretty bad post-ictals with most of them - pretty bad
2 - Only two occasions of seizures, no post-ictal phase on the second one, and very good stability as long as I remembered my medicine and refrained from sugar - pretty good
I prefer the second point of view.

A Late Report on the Conference Call

Six days ago, I went to the Student Affairs building to meet with some of the LeTourneau University staff, and have a conference call with my parents.

There has been some disturbance because of my seizures - 8 seizures within 24 hours about seven weeks ago, and another seizure about one week ago. I have been relieved to hear that the seizure during Bib Lit (see previous post) was not followed by a post-ictal phase, but still, it was not comfortable for the university staff to hear that I had had another seizure.

During the conference call, it was brought up that it would probably be wise and considerate for me to move to a ground floor. (I am currently living on the only fourth floor on campus, named Eagles, but usually referred to as 4B.) I have many wonderful friends here on this floor, whom I would be very sad to move away from, and it stresses me to think about moving. However, it is undeniable that it would not be nice if I had seizures up here and paramedics were needed, and they had to carry a stretcher up three flights of stairs and back down with me on it.

I have talked with Mom, Dad, Sam, the hall RD, the floor RA, and other friends, and I'm thinking that I'll move to the ground floor straight below the floor I'm on right now at the end of this semester. So, the weekend before finals, I'll move all my belongings downstairs. (Hopefully I won't have TOO much cramming to do!) Multiple friends have told me that 1B, the floor I'll be moving to, is a very good one, with good friends to make, and that, plus the fact that I'll be able to study and spend time up on 4B with my [relatively] old friends is a comfort.

Thank you for your prayers! I recognize that God has blessed me a lot, giving me such a bounty of great friends, allowing me continued contact with them even though I have to move away, and giving me good friends to make when I move away.

Hit a bump, but back on the road

Thank you all very much for your prayers for me!

God has blessed me very much, with increased joy in Him, improving academic situations, and good health!

 Yesterday, during Biblical Literature, I had a strong aura that lasted about a minute, and it turned into a seizure. I didn't say anything about it, because I was hoping that it would not develop and didn't want to interrupt class unnecessarily, but as I've found a number of times before, it would have been better to interrupt the professor and say "I'm having a seizure." 

 I came to a while later, was taken to a dorm room on the first floor, since mine's on the fourth floor and if I had another seizure they didn't want to have to carry me down three flights of stairs. I rested there for over an hour, and felt ready to get up before Sam would allow me to, since he had directions to keep me resting for more than an hour. He got me my computer, and I started some homework while relaxing. He also checked my medicine dispenser for me, and brought it to me - I hadn't taken the morning's dose, which, after having the seizure, was good news. (I don't want seizures for no reason - that means I'm really getting vulnerable.) I took the medicine, and by the time dinner was over, I felt as if I hadn't had a seizure at all.

Monday there will be a conference call between me, my parents, and some LeTourneau University staff, talking about what they should do for future seizures.

Please pray for that.

Difficulties, But Doing Well!

It's 6:30 PM, and I just realized that I didn't take my morning dose of medicine.
That would explain why I had a couple of rather threatening auras today, the first in over a week - maybe two.
So, I took the full Ativan, and a third of the Keppra and Trileptal.

Yes, I mentioned that I've been over a week with no auras.

Also, things are going very well academically!
One class that has been somewhat difficult is Bib Lit*, not because of the quality, but the quantity of the homework - reading large portions of the Bible, and writing about each reading. I have been behind on it all.
However, the professor told us last week that he was behind, and so he's changing the schedule, making things due later. I am now getting caught up.
*Biblical Literature - looking at the Bible as a piece of literature

Another class that has been difficult is Electric Circuits 1. The professor does not believe in the inflated grades of today, but tries to give the grades that would have been given had we taken this class when he was in college. That makes it very important to work hard at this class. But, I was not putting enough time into it, until now.
I'm getting more of the homework done, I'm getting the quizzes finished and right, and I'm learning the material.

The news that Bib Lit was changing schedule, and thus forgiving some of my falling behind, was wonderful news to me, encouraging and invigorating me, and I soon realized that I could not only completely catch up, but get ahead by the end of this week.

This week is followed by a four-day weekend, for Fall Break, and I'm thinking I'll try and get well ahead.

Thank you very much for your prayers! God has really blessed me!

Back to normal

David recovered really quickly from all those seizures, so that is really something we are thankful for. Having 8+ seizures in a set used to fry his brain and it would take weeks to recover.

Thanks for the love and prayers! We'll keep the blog more up to date.

If I ever get outta here...

he goes to church. What a guy. David did not want to go into the hospital and couldn't wait to get out. He was discharged this morning in time to get to church.

His seizures didn't bother him much which is amazing since he had 8 (?) that people counted and perhaps more in his sleep.

He is back in his dorm room now talking to me on Skype and looks great. You scared us, dude!

Sam he is!

We do so like that Sam I Am. Somehow a lot of our friends haven't really believed that Sam went to a small engineering college in east Texas. He really did. He is David's roommate, partly so he could be of service when times get tough for David.

Sam has been heroic since yesterday afternoon. He has been David's constant companion and a key part of his healthcare team. God is good. Thanks, Sam.

Getting better

David hasn't had any more seizures today and is resting. He feels good enough that he is impatient to go but the doctor said he could be discharged Sunday morning.

Things are bad right now

After a great 5 weeks, David started a cluster of seizures yesterday afternoon. He has now had 7 total in about 18 hours. He was hospitalized last night.

The neurologist there (Longview, Texas) is apparently going to contact David's own neurologist here this morning to coordinate the care. Our neurologist does not like lots of seizures so hopefully they will figure out something soon that will help.

We're not sure why this is happening. David has a cold coming on which always gives him trouble, but not this much trouble. He had a scoop of ice cream and some M&Ms just before this started, but those things haven't given him too much trouble either.

Things are great!

I just checked my medicine dispenser, and found that I didn't take my medicine this morning. I promptly proceeded to take the morning dose, and was pushed to make another post.

I have not only had no seizures these past weeks, but even no auras! (Hints of seizures)

Thank you all for your prayers, and God bless you!

A Great First Week

A week and a half of preparation plus a week of classes is now over, and in the 15 days in Texas, I have had no seizures!
I stopped trying the Atkins diet shortly after making the last post, as the fatigue was getting worse and it looked like any care I would need to take to maintain both the diet and energy would be more than I could manage.

I'm starting to think I see a picture in the past events.
Many years ago, I lost faith in medications to completely prevent seizures, after trying several combinations and still having regular seizures. My hopes turned to brain surgery.
Two years ago, my hope in brain surgery was challenged, but not shattered.
This summer, my hope in surgery was further challenged, while my faith in God's omnipotence was raised as we prayed that God might miraculously heal me.
My faith in God's power was questioned, but not damaged, when I had seizures after prayer for healing.
Now I am doing very well on a new arrangement of meds, and I am thinking that that might be God's ultimate plan of healing - through the first means that I lost faith in.

Praise the Lord, who works in mighty and mysterious ways!

Beginning Atkins

At dinner yesterday, I began seriously trying to follow the Atkins diet, and have continued since then.

This afternoon, I felt very tired - undoubtedly due to a shortage of sugar in my blood.

I have four prayer requests concerning the Atkins diet:

1) That I will be able to correctly follow it, and not accidentally consume carbs.

2) That it will work, and help reduce or even totally prevent seizures.

3) That the fatigue will not continue, but that my body will learn to burn fat quickly.

4) That I will know quickly whether it is God's will for me to do the diet, the three requests above assuming that it is.

Thank you very much for your prayers; I can tell that God is blessing me.

Veggies!!!

One plan to reduce my seizures is to try the Atkins diet.
The crux of the idea is to virtually eliminate all carbohydrates from my diet, and run on fat.
When a person is running on fat, they enter a state called ketosis, and some aspect of ketosis seems to reduce an epileptic's tendency to seize.

Wondering about the title?
Mom just stopped a gluten-free diet after four weeks, and told me that while she was on it, she had an unusual taste for vegetables.

So, I'm soon going to try and eliminate bread, hamburger buns, pizza crusts, potatoes, candy, soda, fruit and anything else that has sugar and/or starch from my diet.

One nice thing about the diet is that I'm gonna be eating lots of MEAT, and FAT. And I guess I might also start liking veggies, like Mom did.

Catch up

Sorry, blog followers, for the gap of posts.

I can't believe it. Just 6 days till I'm back in Texas, preparing for Fall '10 at LeTourneau University!

Monday through Thursday this week, we (Nemati family) went on a vacation to Morro Bay. There was much fun, especially on Tuesday, when we rented some kayaks for a couple hours.

Every silver lining has a cloud, though. I caught a small cold after swimming and not having anywhere warm to go. On Thursday, as we drove home, I had three seizures. (The first was at 11 AM, the second was at 3 PM, and the third 7 PM.)

I am relieved to hear that the post-ictals of those seizures were not nearly as bad as the two I had in the presence of friends from church. It sounds like I stayed seated, did some weird things, but nothing more dangerous than hitting my head on my knees. (And Dad stuck his hand in the way to cushion that!)

This blog does not yet contain the full story of an amazing answer to prayer. In Surgery Postponed, the surgeon's call came the morning after we watched Finger of God, a documentary about how God is doing miracles everywhere, everyday, and, inspired to have faith in God's power to do things in any way, we prayed that if surgery was not God's plan, the doctors, the surgeon, would cancel of their own accord. The next morning, the surgeon called, and we were told they wanted to postpone it.

That call was obviously an answer to prayer, but from the beginning it was clear that it was not clear exactly what the answer meant. We asked for a cancellation, and got a postponement. At first we thought the postponement might could the same as a cancellation, and that I might be miraculously healed. However, the seizure reported on June 28 dashed that hope - at least of an immediate healing.

I still have hope that God will relieve me of this trial, and in the meantime I am learning from it. Over this summer, we have been reading A Praying Life, and it has strengthened - or perhaps begun - my life of prayer. Also wonderfully helpful have been Pastor Ron Boomsma's sermons on the book of James - especially Aug 1's, "Conflicts." I have been trying to exercise that sermon, and make it a habit, and hopefully I will do well enough to get along well with Sam in a couple weeks.

By the way, my brother Sam is going to LeTourneau University with me this year, and he's going to be my roommate!

Bad seizure yesterday

We were invited to Malcolm and Lisa Wright's for lunch and spent a long time chatting together about faith and about David's situation. Then David had a seizure followed by another alarming post-ictal phase, where he stood on the arm of a couch and reached for things on the ceiling. Bijan was able to coax him down without provoking him to be combative.

We were all pretty disappointed, especially David. I don't think I've seen him this down about his epilepsy before.

In the night I woke up, remembered, and felt pretty bad, but prayed for God to help me think right. Next thought was 'Psalm 61' so I rested and slept, and looked it up this morning:

A Psalm of David.

¹ Hear my cry, O God;
Attend to my prayer.
² From the end of the earth I will cry to You,
When my heart is overwhelmed;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
³ For You have been a shelter for me,
A strong tower from the enemy.
⁴ I will abide in Your tabernacle forever;
I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah
⁵ For You, O God, have heard my vows;
You have given me the heritage of those who fear Your name.
⁶ You will prolong the king’s life,
His years as many generations.
⁷ He shall abide before God forever.
Oh, prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him!
⁸ So I will sing praise to Your name forever,
That I may daily perform my vows.

This captures what I want to pray for David: long life, abiding before God forever, and that we would find mercy and truth that will preserve him.

Surgery postponed

Due to another grid surgery patient having a similar bleeding problem to what David had two years ago, his surgery is postponed. Dr. Ross called this morning to tell us they want to look into why they have had this happen several times in the last two years.

We met the young man who had this situation. Last year David and I visited the nurses to say goodbye before he left for college, and we met the young man and his mom. She is a solid Christian lady and her son has a hard case of epilepsy and has had most of the same treatments as David. We got in touch again a few weeks ago before their surgery, and visited a couple times when they went in last week. Saturday she called me with the very sad news that the saw evidence of bleeding on a cat scan so they took him into surgery, and had to take out the grid. It was really good though to be able to encourage each other. We both feel that God is good to us and provides help even though we have to go through this hard time.

We are all fine with this delay and don't mind. That surgery and hospitalization is brutally hard to go through. Maybe God will provide a different way.

June 22 surgery

Insurance approved the surgery so it looks like we are on for Tuesday June 22. It will be at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. David is excited and optimistic. Mom and Dad are sober.

Progress and Determination

This morning, I visited my neurosurgeon, and it looks like I will be having surgery in about a month.

On Friday the 21st, I had a bad seizure in the middle of care group. I went unconscious, and then became semi-conscious in what is called a post ictal phase. During that phase, memory was not being recorded, and the part of my brain that translates hearing into thoughts must have been asleep as well. I apparently wanted a blanket and pillow, and saw something that looked like what I wanted hanging on the wall - a curtain. Some men at the care group wanted to keep me safe and tried to keep me from doing damage to myself and the house, and I got aggressive. After some time I settled down, went to sleep, and woke up later with no immediate memory of having had a seizure. When Mom mentioned it, my thoughts were "Oh, yeah...".

After learning what happened during that seizure, I do not want to risk having such a thing happen again, and so I want surgery. During the appointment this morning, the surgeon told us that the trauma I had two years ago was like having a car accident - just because it happened once does not mean it will happen next time to a careful driver. So, I have very little anxiety and much to look forward to being relieved of.

Please pray that all remaining decisions will be made with wisdom, that God will protect me through the procedures, and that if God's purpose for epilepsy in my life has been met I will not have any more seizures after the operation following the EEG.

Whoa!

We had a good appointment with David's neurologist last Friday. She gave us a referral to go right to the surgeon and see what he has to offer. (Usually we have to wait and go through steps for this kind of thing to happen which is kind of disorienting.)

So we see Dr. Ross this Monday morning May 24. Please pray for us. We want to make a good decision for David. We aren't sure what he will offer but we aren't really interested in repeating the surgery of July 2008.

It is great having David home! He likes cooking dinner sometimes so last night the younger ones and I came home from co-op classes to find dinner all ready and the kitchen clean. Ahhhhhhh. This morning he tutored John in math for a couple hours. So nice.

What lies ahead

David has two weeks of classes and then finals week. He comes home May 7 for the summer and we are excited for that!

May 14 he sees his neurologist. He has asked for time in the appointment to discuss surgery.

He seems more and more vulnerable to seizures as the semester has gone on.

Getting Better

Yesterday, I felt like my brain had been reset, and the feeling lingered today, though it is nearly gone. When I thought of things that are usually at the forefront of my mind, I would think, "Oh, yeah."
I told Mom about that, and she told me that that used to be normal for me; I obviously have still been doing a lot better than before, despite the resuming of seizures.
So, I'm steadily getting better; yesterday at some dark hour of the morning was the peak worst, and it has headed uphill since then.
Except for the punctuation between 6-hour ibuprofen periods, at which my temperature went up to 100.3 or so, my temperature has remained around 99.5. I hope it will go down another degree tomorrow!

This morning, at chapel, I saw some clips of Passion of the Christ for the first time, and seeing the whips cut deep cut deep into my heart, and reminded me afresh of what Jesus went through for me.

Sickest in a While

Last night, I slept with a wet washcloth on my forehead, to absorb some of the fever.

This morning I do not have any of the sore throat or cough I had before, and the headache is not too intense.

However, I still have a fever over 101 degrees, and last night I had between 3 and 5 seizures. I remember waking up a few times, and feeling an aura. I don't know for certain whether the auras actually turned into seizures; I went to sleep after the auras, and if they actually were seizures, they helped me get back to sleep.

Seizures while sleeping have been very rare.

Once a Week?

I had my third seizure this month this afternoon, at 3 PM CDT.

Saturday night I started feeling a cold. Sunday I felt optimistic that it would not last long, and I'm still hoping that it will be gone by Wednesday. Today I had a cough, a sore throat, and a headache, although all three have been getting gentler since 6 PM.

Having used up my last ibuprofen (Motrin/Advil), I went to Walmart with another student, and decided to try using garlic pills. (See http://www.gardensablaze.com/HerbGarlicMed.htm).

I drank a lot of liquid this morning, and I hope that helped clean out my body.

Every MWF morning, students are supposed to go to a chapel event, and today's was a talk by a man from Jews for Jesus, who showed how Christianity is perfectly compatible with Judaism. At the cafeteria, at dinner, he led everyone through the Passover ceremony, and showed how the ceremony is rich with symbolism of Jesus' act of salvation.

So, overall, today has been a good day.

Late Report

Last Thursday, one week after the previous seizure, I had another seizure.

I was at the apartment of the student coordinating a series of service projects, playing Monopoly after dinner. The game kept going on, and I could tell that I was staying up too late as it got to 10:30 and 11 PM.

An aura started, and I could tell it was serious, but instead of telling the others I simply swiped my magnet a couple times and hoped for it to go away. After it kept going on for about half a minute, I remembered that Dad had told me to breath into my cupped hands, and I started doing that. About five seconds after that, the seizure came on fully, and I went unconscious.

My memory resumes when I was back on my floor, accompanied by my friends. I told them I should go to bed, and I went to bed. It did not take long that night to get to sleep.

Moral: Never assume it's okay to stay up late when you feel tired.

A Good Break, But Another Seizure

I had a nice, long break of over five and a half weeks since the last seizures, but today I had one.


Up until today, I had not missed a single dose of my medicine, and in the past, it has often required two missed doses and something else to trigger a seizure. This morning, I missed my medicine, and at about noon (CST) I had a seizure. Right before I completely lost control to the seizure, I called "Seizure" into the hallway, and then sat/laid on my bed.

 I was awakened from the sleep that followed the seizure by paramedics taking me to the ambulance. I still am not sure who called them. On the way to the hospital, they asked me some questions (SSN, home address, parents' names, etc.), and I gradually was able to answer the questions faster. After a while, I was recovered enough from my seizure to ask to be let out. I made that request immediately after signing all the papers saying that they can treat me (irony!). I'm not sure if there was any action/cancellation of action in response to that request, but anyway I called the professor teaching my class that meets at 1:30, and left a message telling him that I would not be able to come.

The professor called back, told me that I was certainly excused from class, and that he would send someone to give me a ride back to campus. Over the next half-hour, the nasal pipes, IV things, and other gizmos were removed, and the lady the professor had sent arrived.

I went back to campus, and got in bed, and stayed there until about 4:30. I do not remember needing this much time to recover from a seizure before, so I would guess that the sleep immediately following a seizure is critical for a quick recovery. Thus, the paramedics not only gave me unneeded help, they may have actually slowed my recovery. But they're still good guys.

Until I took my evening dose, I was pretty sure that I had taken my morning dose; I didn't specifically remember taking it, but I figured that since I had been consistent every other day this semester, I must have taken it.

Anyway, since missing just one dose started a seizure, I am not in a very good state.
I'll be calling my neurologist to see if I should increase my medicines. She found during Christmas break that not enough of one med was going into my blood, and raised my dose, and I am wondering if I might need to raise it more.

Back to the Blog...

It's funny, last semester I was so zealous about blogging that I started a blog for my floor and urged everyone else to join as authors, earning myself the floor name "Post". Now it's been over a month since I last made a post on this blog.

Anyway, it's been about four and a half weeks since my last seizure, and today I came the closest in a while to having a seizure, but it didn't develop.

I was leading the floor devo, telling everyone about what Gregory Koukl wrote in his book Tactics (see str.org or amazon.com), and as I was getting to the very end, I felt an aura beginning. I could sort of tell that it was larger than most, but I swiped my magnet and kept reading. Five to ten seconds later, I felt that it wasn't stopping, so I put the laptop that was on my lap on the floor. Five to ten seconds after that, I could tell that it was not stopping, so I stopped reading and alerted everyone. The friend who was helping me with the devos took over, and I moved to another seat. It was cooler there, and the aura quickly ended.

Thank you for your prayers! I'm having a pretty good time here at LeTourneau University, with a great social life, good classes, and sometimes good food, as well.

Two steps forward, one step baaaack...

David seems to be slowly going back to the way he was before the surgery.

A couple weeks ago he got a cold. Even a small fever triggers seizures and he had two. One was while he was going down stairs (4th floor dorm room!!) but he felt it coming and got to a landing. When he regained consciousness there were several guys around him.

So far we are still ok with him being away. He manages his sleep and activities to minimize his risk of more seizures, takes his medicine faithfully, and does the thinking about how he can succeed in this. Last week after the two seizures he called the doctor himself, even before calling us. It's good to see him growing in independence.

One interesting detail: he now senses whether he will or won't have a seizure soon. I had read about this a couple years ago, that many people with epilepsy could tell if they would have a seizure that day, and in a study they were right 80% of the time. At that time I asked David if he could tell, but he hardly could imagine what I was even talking about. But now he seems to be able to!

Trouble is Passing

I have had no more seizures this last week; thank you for your prayers.
I have continued to have auras, getting progressively fewer, smaller, and farther between.
I have also figured out why I had the seizures on Monday. The previous week I had a slight cold, and on Saturday the 23rd, when it was almost completely gone, I went on a service project with others on my floor, to help prepare a Habitat for Humanity house to be moved into. On that service project, I had a lot of fun and overexerted myself, breaking a shovel at one point.
Excessive exertion is my bane. The cold came back, and I had to rest all week, falling behind on homework and even missing a class.
I am getting better; yesterday morning I had no fever, though it came back in the afternoon, and today I am following my brother's advice and staying in bed most of the day, as he said a full day in bed will take about three days off of the recovery time.

I am having fun in my classes, especially Diffy Q. (that's how the professor said it's spelled when a student asked; I thought it was Diff. Eq., but apparently not), and the professors are very kind in allowing me to catch up.

Good and Bad News

A few days before returning to college, I had a second appointment with Dr. Maleeva, and we figured out a good adjustment to my doses to prevent seizures.

About two weeks ago, I came back to LeTourneau University, and I enjoyed having no seizures for about two weeks. I established a sleep pattern, going to bed at about midnight and waking up at about 8 AM, and it went well. Last semester I learned a correction of Ben Franklin's proverb: "Consistently to bed, consistently to rise...". The pattern I was sleeping by affirmed that correction.

Sunday the 24th, I went to bed early, and woke up Monday at 5 AM. That was an immediate blessing, giving me nearly 4 hours to do the work due at classes that morning.

I didn't take any naps, yesterday, however, and apparently I got too tired.

I had two seizures yesterday, about an hour apart, at about 3:30 and 5:00, plus or minus half an hour for each.

Last night I woke up several times, and felt like I was having similar seizures to the two yesterday.

I have not missed any medicine, so my guess as to the cause is that I was awake too long yesterday, and that I might be getting sick. I have had a little bit of congestion for a week or so, but when it first appeared there was no fever. Now I have a slight fever - 99 degrees - and I had a headache until I took some ibuprofen.

The seizures yesterday were not stopped by the VNS, even though I swiped the magnet. This morning, after I got up, I had a very intense aura, that lasted about a whole minute. It felt like the last conscious moments of the seizures yesterday, but after swiping the magnet several times, and praying, it ended without putting me unconscious.

After that candidate for the worst aura I have ever had, I took an Ativan pill. I do not expect to have any more seizures this week, although it is possible that the trouble that got the seizures through the VNS and once-a-week Ativan will break through again.

Please pray, that I will not have any more seizures, that I will be able to get the assignments in my classes done, and that I will remain faithful to God.