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.

One More, and Some Updates

I had a seizure this morning at about 9 AM. After having a seizure last night, there was good reason to get to bed early, and I had less difficulty than usual getting to sleep. However, I woke up around 4:15 AM, and after about 2 and a half hours of trying to get back to sleep I gave up. I did some Bible reading, ten chapters of Luke, then read some of the Gospel Primer, and then got into conversations with my brothers, who had finally woke up. In the middle of a conversation which was being interrupted by Sam's giggles, an aura started, I got up and swiped a magnet, got back in bed, and woke up around half an hour later.

After about one seizure every two weeks during my first semester, and now three seizures after trying some adjustments of my medicines during the break, Mom, Dad, and I are thinking that I may have to forget about Spring '10 at LeTourneau University.

It will be sad to leave after the first semester, but I have faith that I will be able to return for Fall '10 and on. With around 8 months at home (with some community college classes), I have hope of finding another way to have my brain scanned and surgically therapized (I'm not sure if that's a word, but it is intuitive).

Thank you all for your prayers.

I was worried that my GPA was too low to keep a scholarship, but I found the grades online and was elated to find it higher than I had expected. Praise the Lord for inspiring grading on curves!