I was going to write about finding myself. I’m always trying to find myself, I’m always trying to dig beneath the layers, starting with the names I’m called. Maybe this search is all part of growing up, of living life. Maybe I will never know the answers, maybe I will never be at peace within myself.
One evening in January, the kids were doing their normal nightly routine of noise and mayhem. I’m sure the dog was throwing her two cents in, and I’d be willing to bet there were dishes waiting to be done and laundry that needed to be done. I, however, felt a headache coming on, and I just needed a few minutes of peace. So, I retreated to the bedroom with a trashy Harlequin romance novel to read. (Yes, I read trashy Harlequin romance novels…it’s a guilty indulgence I share with my mother…who incidentally feeds this addiction of mine by passing on all of her books to me when she is done reading them.) I remember being stretched out on my side of the bed, but with my head slightly on Toph’s pillow, on top of the blankets. I remember our cranky black cat beside me. I remember looking at the clock’s neon red numbers and seeing it was just past 7 p.m. and thinking that I ought go help Toph get the kids ready for bed. The monkey, in particular, was being cantankerous that evening.
As I heard the monkey’s voice raised to make some point to Toph, I felt the moment I knew was coming. It always comes when I feel a migraine coming on. The monkey’s words echoed in my head and with an internal twist, I felt I had seen and done all of this before. That internal twist made me sick to my stomach, I felt disoriented, and the pain began behind my forehead just like always…but this time, the world faded quickly away….
The next thing I remember from that evening, I was on the floor beside my bed, blinking at the wall and a man’s leg. A strange man’s leg. I heard a strange man’s voice saying my name, “Beth!” Why, I thought blearily to myself, is there a strange man in my room, by my bed, saying my name? When I looked around, there were several strange men in my room and I still could not think clearly enough to understand what was going on. My brain felt so slow. The men were asking me questions: Where was I? What was my name? What was my social security number? And although I could slowly think of the answers it took me long moments to sift them out of the cotton wool in my head and then to transfer them from my thoughts to my mouth. During this time, I realized Toph was there. I heard his voice…his beautiful, deep voice, assuring the strange men that I was answering correctly. Although hearing his voice was a comfort to me, as it always is, I could hear a strain in it. I knew there was something wrong, just by the worry in his voice. Still, the cotton wool in my head could not process what was wrong with the scene being enacted in my bedroom…strange men and all.
When the men, with their latex gloves loaded me on the wheeled gurney and pushed me out the door of my house, while I heard my monkey-child asking questions (although, at this point, I don’t remember exactly what he said), it began to dawn on me what was going on. When the blanket over me didn’t keep out the cold air, and the lights on the ambulance flashed in my face; when the gurney bumped roughly over the cracks between the driveway and the road; when the gurney had to be lifted from the surface of the street into the ambulance; when the doors clanged shut and I was strapped in; when the sirens wailed and the lights flashed at every intersection….I was getting a trip to the hospital.
I still wasn’t sure what had happened after the deja-vu aura had set in.
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Apparently, there are ugly realities people never think to tell you about seizures. Sure, when it comes to what used to be known as “grand mal” seizures, the person often falls to the ground in convulsions, and it lasts for several minutes. Then, I always guessed, life went on and la dee da dee da. That’s not quite true. The person who had the seizure must often change their clothes, because their bladder often also convulses during the seizure. I didn’t realize mine had until I was at the hospital and the blankets were removed from my body. That was a little embarrassing.
I had also always heard the old advice about sticking a wallet in the convulsing person’s mouth (that is an OLD piece of advice, by the way. It is NO LONGER recommended.) to keep them from swallowing their tongue or something. Well, I don’t think swallowing the tongue is so much an issue, but it sure as hell hurts after the seizure when you’ve bitten your tongue. The swelling didn’t go down for nearly a week for my tongue.
I had also never thought about how much a person’s muscles must be working when they are involuntarily convulsing. It makes sense, though, that I was exceptionally sore for several weeks after the seizure. I moved like a little old lady, bent over, hobbling, groaning and moaning. I slept a lot, since I didn’t hurt so much when I slept.
And, I guess it also makes sense that a headache is common in the aftermath of a seizure, since the seizure is caused by misfiring of electrical pulses in the brain. And in the case of a “grand mal” type seizure, the pulses are generalized over the whole brain.
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So, that was it. In January, I had a seizure. It started with a deja-vu…the first time I remember having a deja-vu moment was in high school. I was in algebra class, I believe, and it made me so sick to my stomach and gave me such a headache, I begged to go to the nurse and go home for the day. The phrase “migraine” was tossed around, and I think we (mom, doctor, me) all just figured that’s what it must be. Until the day I sat down with my neurologist and described what happened in January this year and related how that seizure had begun much like my migraines usually did and she said, I bet those migraines were seizures. Who knew?
I know next to nothing about seizures even after two months of doing research.I forget half of what I read ten minutes after I read it these days! Thank you, dilantin and topamax. But twice a day, now, I walk with my dog through the neighborhood to pick up the monkey-child from school, where before I drove the car while the dog stayed in her crate. The dishes pile up in the sink and the laundry gets done when we hit the bottom of our drawers and I hear, “I don’t have any clean underwear!” and I constantly sleep and get cranky and say I’m sorry to Toph…but I guess it’s one more challenge on this path to figuring out who I am, one more road to explore as I define myself, one more nickname to tag myself with….
