Brain Misbehavin’

So, to go into a bit more detail re. my previous post, I give below a report of the latest seizure developments:

(As you already know)
Date: 10th May 2006
Time: Approx 7.30pm
Location: Double Locks pub, Exeter.
Time since previous seizure: Approx 1 yr 2 months.
Injuries incurred: Bitten lip and general mouth cutting. As usual 2 week recovery time for mouth injury.
Notes: Although time since proper seizure noted as 1 yr 2 months, plenty of ‘auras’ were experienced in between.

Date: 23rd June 2006
Time: 1.10am
Location: In bed, asleep, the flat.
Time since previous seizure: Approx 6 weeks.
Injuries incurred: Bitten lip and general mouth cutting again. 2 week recovery time for mouth injury.
Notes: Not much to say really.

Date: 8th July 2006
Time: Approx 7am
Location: In bed, asleep, Becky’s flat in Bristol.
Time since previous seizure: Approx 2 weeks.
Injuries incurred: None.
Notes: It woke me up and I remember some of the seizure but obviously slipped into unconciousness during. Had a period of general confusion afterwards, thinking it was a good idea to wander into Becky’s room and wake her up. She kindly made tea for us and no major hang over resulted thankfully due to quick tea injection.

Date: 13th July 2006
Time: 2am
Location: In bed, asleep, the flat.
Time since previous seizure: 5 days.
Injuries incurred: Finger nail sized cuts in the palms (nails are now cut short), strange blisters/sores on the 3rd and 4th toes of my right foot, two bumps on the head.
Notes: James tried to prevent me from falling out of bed but it was quite difficult for him. He prevented me from leaving the flat to embark upon “the search for more toilets”.

Date: 17th July 2006
Time: 7am
Location: In bed, just woken, the flat.
Time since previous seizure: 5 days.
Injuries incurred: None, other than an aching neck.
Notes: Was awake, knew it was going to happen so woke up James. Wasn’t too bad and I didn’t lose conciousness. Decided to stay home from work anyway as i had no meetings. Turned out to be a good idea. James stayed home until lunch time, at which we decided it was ok for him to go into work.

Date: 17th July 2006
Time: Approx 3pm
Time since previous seizure: 8 hours.
Location: Leaving the en-suite, trying to reach the bed or something. I was confused and can’t remember well.
Injuries incurred: 2 bumps on the head, scrape and bruise on the right foot, bruise on right knee, bruise just above right knee, large bruise and scrape on right forearm, HUMONGOUS bruise and scrape on right upper arm, bruise on right elbow.
Notes: I don’t remember much about this one at all. The last thing i remember is being in the bathroom and thinking to myself “i’m going to have a seizure” but i didn’t have time to do anything much. I woke up (I think…this is very hazy) on the bedroom floor, head towards the door and foot kind of kicking the bedside table. I think i must have fallen down here and hit my arm on the door which was propped open with a doorstop. I had the worst hangover ever known and i remember lying there just kind of whining James’s name until my confusion had subsided enough to know where i was. I got up and immediately forgot that I had been on the floor and wandered through to the lounge where i did the familiar thing of sitting at my computer. IRC was highlighted so i thought i would tell James that a few minutes ago i felt like i was going to have a seizure but thankfully i hadn’t (you kind of reset to the last thing you accurately thought…kind of a mental “restore settings from last working configuration”). James is always window 4 in my irssi so i tried to Alt-4 and say “James” however this somehow came out as

1555.53 [+Greeneyez] 44jame

in #exeter.I then typed the following:

[Greeneyez] o’t 44lkrrrrrrrrrrpleqwe p09^9^9^9^9^9^9^9^

which at the time I honestly and truly believed to say “I don’t feel well please help” but I immediately felt bad because I thought to myself “that’s going to make James think I’ve had a seizure when I haven’t and that’ll make him worry and want to come home” so I never actually pressed enter to send that message to James. As it happened, the initial “44jame” going uncorrected in #exeter for so long was enough to make him call the house land line from work (he’s so amazing isn’t he), long before i was fully capable for making a concious decision to call him myself, so you could say IRC to the rescue there. I managed to answer the phone and although I sounded completely normal in my own head, James immediately identified that i was in classic post-seizure foggy world and told me to go to bed until he got home. I did as he said, still feeling awful. He didn’t take long to get home and took care of me with tea and painkillers. Later things became clearer in my head and judging by the injuries and how i was feeling I realised that the only explanation was a proper seizure and not just an aura.

James has asked me what it is like to feel like you really don’t know what’s going on and it’s hard to describe. You don’t know what’s going on, but you don’t necessarily know that you don’t know what’s going on, if that makes sense. You may think that doing something completely foolhardy or odd is a good idea, like shaking your brother awake at 3am to ask him what “his plans” are, or leaving the flat at 2am to “search for more toilets”.

So how do i feel about this increased frequency of incidents? Well, obviously not entirely ecstatic. As previously explained, cavernomas leak blood and the leaked blood causes seizures. This leads me to conclude that my cavernoma has recently done a bit of leaking into my happy brain cells thus pissing them off. If only we could apply an elastoplast to the cavernoma to prevent further bleeding (scarily referred to as ‘hemorrhaging’ amongst medical peeps), or maybe use one of those dentist sucky vacuume tube things to remove any blood sloshing around in there. Sadly these suggestions don’t go down well with the aforementioned medical peeps.

Thoughts pass through the mind of “do you ever hear about old people with epilepsy…not really…does that mean…they all die relatively young?” etc. It’s not a good train of thought but deep down i know it’s silly because millions of people live with epilepsy all the time. I just have to acclimatise myself back into being a more regular sufferer having got used to a blissfully long period without any effects.