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.