First Big Seizure

I haven’t blogged in a while as everything had been going fine. This past Monday I took my last Keppra, or anti-seizure medication. Tuesday, I made contact with NRH and Apria finally picked up my wheelchair. I was hanging on to it, for I don’t know what reason. I also made it into work Monday for a short meeting and to do some paperwork. I also managed to get back there Thursday afternoon for a few hours. Everything was going so well last week as I set off to dream-land Thursday night…

Holly and I hit the sack pretty early… a little after 10pm. We both had a wonderful end to the day, we laid down, prayed together and fell fast asleep. I remember waking up thinking I had a cramp in my leg. It was actually about 2am. I felt my leg get stiff, but then I recall my whole body being stiff. I yelled out, and that’s all I remember. The next thing I knew, the lights were on and our bedroom was filled with men in blue shirts. They were paramedics and I had just regained consciousness after suffering from my first ever general seizure. At first, I didn’t know what was going on. I came to and there were all these people around me – Holly was right there next to me telling me that I had a seizure and that the men were there to help me. I guess I was really out of it – I don’t really even remember them giving me an IV or putting EKG pads all over the front of my upper body. They asked me a bunch of questions that I don’t even remember – I guess I had a hard time coming to grips with what just happened. They moved me over to a stretcher and rolled me out of my room, out of the apartment, down the hall, into the elevator, through the lobby and into a waiting ambulance. I was concerned when we made it into the ambulance because I wasn’t sure where Holly was. But just as we were about to pull away, I looked through the rear window and noticed our truck had pulled up right behind the ambulance… Holly was right behind us.

We made our way to the hospital, Virginia Hospital Center here in Arlington. I know we talked in the ambulance, but again, I can’t remember what we talked about. We got to the hospital and they backed up, just like in the movies, and moved me into a triage bay. The medics handed me off to the nurses and a doctor. They asked me more questions – but again… I’m drawing a blank. Thank God Holly was there to answer all their questions. I do remember that everything seemed to pretty much go by the book. They took some blood and also gave me a head CT. They didn’t find anything abnormal as I am at risk for seizures and I just came off my meds three days earlier. They gave me a Keppra, some Cranberry juice and after about two hours, Holly and I were on our way back home. We went back to sleep around 5:30am. I still don’t remember exactly what happened – all the details are fuzzy, but Holly will fill you in when she blogs about it.

We got back up at 8am as I had an ultrasound at 9am at Bethesda. I had an ultrasound of my testicles and everything was clear. We stopped in to see my Radiation/Oncologist, Dr. Duelge, just to fill him in on what happened the night before. He was surprised to hear it happened, but there was always a chance. Then we made it up to see Dr. Rosenbaum – it sure was good to see him again. We talked to him for about a half hour and he told me that the type of seizure I has seemed very similar to a Jacksonian Seizure (check out the link.) I thought I was having a cramp in my right leg, where the tumor was located in my brain. It moved from there forward and affected the rest of my brain, then I blacked out. He also said that having a seizure like that makes the brain have a week’s worth of activity in about 30 seconds. He suggested that I start talking half a pill of Keppra once a day now. If that keeps the seizures at bay, then we can stay at that dosage. If I have another one in the future, we’ll kick it up to a whole pill a day and see how that goes. On a side note, Dr. Rosenbaum is leaving the Navy, his last day is this Friday. He’s heading to private practice in NC. Best of luck to you in the future Dr. Rosenbaum!

So, that’s about it. After running around all day Friday, we went to the 275th Army Band concert at a local middle school (excellent) and ate out at Costa Verde (excellent Peruvian food) and then I fell asleep hard. I didn’t wake up once all night. Saturday we slept in and then headed out to see the movie Nacho Libre. I thought it was just silly – it did have me laughing the whole way through. If you want to see it, watch a matinee or rent it when it comes out. Then we had dinner with Ryan and Amanda at Café Asia (always good food there) and then we stayed up and played games and just chatted the night away. Today we went to church (duh) and then had lunch at Bertucci’s (very good Italian food.) After that we came home and just vegged out since it’s too warm outside to hang out. This weekend and the coming week are going to be hot. We might hit 100 here… that’s hot for DC!

Tomorrow I have PT and a follow-up appointment with my Urologist. I’m going to have to take it easy at PT since the seizure left my biceps, left ankle and neck sore. I also popped my jaw and can’t open my mouth all the way – it really hurts. I have been popping 800mg pills of Ibuprofen too try to help that get better. Please pray that the seizures don’t come back. I’ll try to get Holly to blog about our experience soon. Have a great day.