Falling Apart

You ever been in a rut where everything seems to suck?

Your job sucks, you're in debt like crazy, you can't even afford to do anything fun, most of your hobbies have fallen by the wayside for whatever reason, etc. etc.

That's kinda where I've been for a while. I haven't enjoyed this job since probably the first couple weeks. I'm actually negative financially every month since I've started this job, except this month (because I went a week without buying food or anything else while I was at camp.) I haven't been to a cheer practice, as a coach or a cheerleader, in so long that I can't even give much of a time line (less than a year, but not by much.) I've been having seizures after being almost 8 years seizure free, and I'm now in my second med switch in a year to try to control them. (Hopefully this switch will work out better for me.) I haven't talked to most of my friends in months - partly because I'm busy with my Android development, partly because of my off-kilter work schedule, and partly because I just didn't make the effort.

But the thing is, I didn't care. Yes, I complained about my job - I'd probably go crazy if I didn't vent to someone. I blogged about my seizures - but more to inform and educate others of my situation than complaining. And I have had to cut back in a lot of areas to keep my budget as close to the green as possible. But I didn't care about any of that because there was still one thing that was good in my life. One thing that made me forget about all of that. One thing that could make all of my worries disappear in the blink of an eye.

But that thing was not just a thing, it was a person. A person that I loved, a person that I still love very much despite her recent actions. A person who I don't think I could ever let go of... and that's the hard part. I know that I need to let go right now, even if only temporarily - until I get back to "normal". I know that I need to stop talking to her until my wounds are healed. I know that I need to try not to even THINK about her for at least a few weeks.

But all of that is obviously easier said than done. I think about her immediately as I wake up in the morning. I think about her when I'm watching movies by myself instead of with her. I think about her when I see all of this football news, knowing that she won't be with me to watch the games this year. I think about her when I take my meds, because I have been talking to her about her experiences with this medicine... I think about her constantly throughout the day. And then I think about her one last time while I'm laying in bed, and I debate sending her an emoticon kiss before I fall asleep - even though I know that it will no longer be appreciated the way that it was before.


So what do I do now? Well, the only thing that I can think of is trying to focus on the next best thing in my life... my increasing fitness level. Focus on my workouts and my diet, and try to think of the bad things while working out so that I can release all of that negative energy. The hard part is that I have to try not to think about that one good thing - the one good thing that I hope will come around and become a good thing once again.

Love...

Love is an amazing thing. It's such a unique and euphoric feeling when you love someone, but it's also the deepest, most stinging pain when something happens to that love.


The biggest problem, in my case, is that when I love someone I love them for everything that they are. I love them for their smile, for the way that their hair falls in their face, for the way that they cuddle with me, for that little imperfection right around the waist line, for their beautiful eyes - even if they are a color that most people wouldn't consider beautiful, they're beautiful because they're staring so intimately into mine.

I love the way I can touch a certain place and drive you crazy, because nobody else has taken the time to actually love your body the way that I do, and the fact that you can do the same to me. And that even if someone else does find your certain place, they won't be gentle enough to get the same reaction that I did. I love the way that you feel safe in my arms, and can fall asleep just because I'm holding you. I love lying next to you and feeling like time has stopped. I love falling asleep with you in my arms, even if just for a few minutes, and waking up with the most beautiful woman in my arms. I love the way that you kiss me in a way that no other woman ever has. I love that I know your favorite part of my body, and that you know my favorite part of yours.

I love that you will watch movies with me, and enjoy them just because I enjoy them. I love that you can put aside your passion to appreciate my passion for a day... and that I am willing to do the same for you.



But I hate that you can throw all of that away in the blink of an eye. That you can move on to something else without even mentioning it to me, and without thinking about how I will be affected. That you would let something like age, and other people's opinions, stand in the way of what we have. And I hate that you won't even admit that we had something special, something that neither of us will ever forget. I don't know how you can do these things, and I wish I could understand.

I hate that sinking feeling that I now have in my stomach, because I miss you every day. I hate that I can't even text you without feeling an intense urge to find you and hug you. I hate that I can't find single picture of just the two of us, anywhere. I hate that you are still the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing that I think about before I go to bed... but I only hate it because it brings back that sinking feeling again and again. And I hate that you indirectly told me that you loved me, while simultaneously moving on.

And lastly, I'm afraid... afraid that I will never hold you in my arms again, never kiss you again, and never look into your eyes and see what I saw before. That I will never watch another movie with you cuddled up next to me. That I will never again wake up next to you, even if it is on a couch while watching TV. And I'm afraid that I will never be able to see you again without that same sinking feeling in my stomach.



But most of all, I wish that I hadn't waited until after it was too late to tell you all of this.

This Weekend

This weekend was awesome. The only bad part... I am a total wreck recently. I am messed up emotionally an physically.

Why? Well, there are many reasons. First, I recently went through something... big, that messed me up pretty bad emotionally. I'm still trying to find ways to get over it. What happened? Well that will be saved for another post, and even then I will likely not reveal all of the details. Right now I'm not really ready to talk about it though. There are 2 people other than me who know any details, 1 is kinda the cause of the whole thing, the other is one of my best friends over the past 15 years (give or take.)

Also, my meds are playing games with me. As you may know, I'm in the beginnings of switching medicine again. I'm still feeling the side effect of the keppra (lots of emotional side-effects) and I'm starting to get side effects from the Lamictal as well.

The Lamictal is causing me to be tired, which is expected, and it is also causing some dizziness. Usually for a couple hours after I take it, and right now it's only when I'm standing. If I'm sitting or laying down I'm fine. The label says "may cause dizziness", but so does every other medicine I've ever been on for my seizures, and none of them have ever actually caused me to be dizzy.

I talked to someone I know who is on it, and she said that she experienced the same thing while coming onto it, but that it goes away after your body gets used to it. But I can expect to feel this at each increase in dosage, which means I'll be dealing with it on and off for the next 6+ weeks, depending on how quickly my body adjusts.


So onto the good stuff.

My dad came in from Florida on Wednesday and is staying with my brother in Buffalo, then going back tomorrow (Monday.)

Saturday I woke up early to get some work done on my car. My tires are no longer slowly losing air, and it rides a lot smoother thanks to a fuel injection system cleaning. Then I drove into Buffalo to my brother's house, where I met up with him and my dad. From there, we were deciding what to do. We had a list of things that we wanted to do throughout the weekend, and were planning an itinerary of sorts.

We started by going to Niagara falls. We've all been there many times before (we = me, my brother, and my dad) but none of us had ever done the cave of the winds, and we wanted to do some other things too.. So we got a "Discovery Pass" which included the cave of the winds, the maid of the mist, a movie about the history of the falls, the aquarium, and a discovery center. We didn't get to the aquarium and the discovery center, but the pass STILL saved us money on the things that we did do.

The cave of the winds is the most amazing thing that I have ever experienced. You walk on a wooden deck of sorts and actually approach the falls on foot. I took some pictures, but as I got closer I had to put my phone away in fear of water damage. On the "hurricane deck", the water is so powerful that it actually hurt when it hit me. for about half of the walk I had to squint my eyes to see anything, because there was so much water coming at me and going into my eyes. So pro tip to anyone who wants to do that... buy some swimming goggles. Those small ones that cover only your eyes, not a mask, and a water proof camera.

The maid of the mist we had all done before, but it's still cool. You go onto a boat and approach the horseshoe falls. You get pretty close, and are basically surrounded by water on 3 sides of the boat at the furthest point. There is an upper deck and a lower deck on the boat. If you go on the upper deck you will get soaked. On the lower deck, in the front you still get soaked because it juts out a little farther than the upper deck. But the rest of the lower deck you can stay fairly dry.

For both of these (maid of the mist and cave of the winds) you receive a poncho to wear, which actually keeps you pretty dry underneath, as long as you actually wear it. Some people there took them off, or never put them on, and they got pretty wet.

After the falls we went back to my brother's place and built a fire in his fire pit. It was fairly comical because it took us forever to get it going, and my dad and my brother's roommate were basically commentary for the whole situation. I burned the tip of one of my fingers pretty badly... I grabbed a log to move it and touched the wrong spot. Luckily I put some aloe on it, and it healed up pretty nice. There's a small blister, but it doesn't even hurt anymore.

We went to make s'mores, but his girlfriend had filled the Graham cracker box with left over marshmallows and other goodies, so we had s'mores with only marshmallows and chocolate.

Today (Sunday) we went to the piece arrow museum. Pierce Arrow is a car company that no longer exists that was founded in Buffalo.They had some cool stuff in there too, I took some pics. Then we went to the Irish festival. We ate corned beef sandwiches and salt potatoes, and listened to some good music.

Finally, we went to see where my brother's new brewery is going to be. The company is in its infancy, so there isn't much in there, and the building is going to need some work, but it's a nice place.




Then after all the awesome things that happened this weekend, back comes the "something... big" with an in your face reminder straight from the source. Thanks. That's what I needed to end my weekend.

Oh well, it happens. It was still an awesome weekend.

New Meds... again

After about 3 weeks of playing phone tag, I finally talked to my neurologist today. I had told him that I had a seizure a few weeks ago, and today I told him that I had another on Friday and about the side effects that I've been experiencing. So after looking at all of that, we decided it's time to try another medicine.

Last year around this time, I switched off of my long-time medicine - Tegretol. After coming off of Tegretol for the first time in over 20 years, I noticed a HUGE difference in myself. A good difference. But now that I've been on the Keppra for a while, I'm noticing more differences... not so good differences. Anxiety, aggressiveness, depression, even borderline bi-polar at times.

This time last year, my neurologist gave me a choice of 2 medicines to try - Keppra or Lamictal. I chose Keppra for a two main reasons: The switch from Tegretol to Lamictal is extremely tough because of interactions between the two, and the side effect of the Keppra seemed to be less severe than those of Lamictal. However, after experiencing the side effects of Keppra, and talking to people about both, it seems that the side effects of Lamictal may be more severe, but they're also not as common. So I'm hoping for little or no side effects on the Lamictal, but who knows.

As I said last year, switching meds is ALWAYS scary. I haven't had a tonic clonic (Grand Mal) seizure in 8 years, but when I switch meds it could happen, and that's always scary.

So here's the process - 6 weeks to get onto the Lamictal. 2 weeks at 25mg, 2 weeks at 50mg, and 2 weeks at 100mg. Then blood work to see where my levels are, and a trip to the doc to talk about those levels and any possible side effects, etc. Assuming the levels are good, we then start the 8 week journey to come off of the Keppra. 

ASIDE - I've decided that I'm taking myself back down to 2,000mg of Keppra right now. We increased to 2,500 a while back with no positive results, so I feel like I can safely go back to 2,000 with no increase in seizures and a possible decrease in side effects. I didn't talk to my doc about this, but I don't think I need to. It's a no brainer decision. 

AND WE'RE BACK - The Keppra will come down in 500mg sections. 2 weeks at 1,500, 2 weeks at 1,000, 2 weeks at 500, then after 2 weeks of being off of it, it should be completely out of my system.

As you can see from the previous paragraph, the difference in dosage of the 2 meds is astounding. I will be maxing out at 100mg of Lamictal, and you can't even get a pill of Keppra for less than 250mg.

As I imagined when I heard this difference, the size of the pills is night and day too. The Keppra are like horse pills, which are sometimes hard to swallow. The Lamictal are smaller than a breath mint. If I drop a Lamictal it will be hard to find because it's so small. With the Keppra I could fit 4x 1,000mg pills in my pocket pill container - less than 2 days supply after my increase. With the Lamictal I could literally put my entire prescription in my pocket container.

So that's the news. It's going to be a long haul, but in about 4 months I'll be completely off of Keppra and on Lamictal.

Keppra Side Effects That I Experience

I just looked up a list of the side effects of Keppra - which I've done before but I can't remember them all:

Key:

Bold: Things that I have definitely seen a difference
Green: Things that I seem to have seen change, but are hard to tell
Underline: common symptoms during my partial seizures
regular: listed in possible side effects, but I don't seem to experience

More common:

• Aggressive or angry
• anxiety
• change in personality
• chills
• cough or hoarseness
• crying
• depersonalization
• diarrhea
• dry mouth
• euphoria
• fever
• general feeling of discomfort or illness
• headache
• hyperventilation
• irregular heartbeats
• irritability
• joint pain
• loss of appetite
• lower back or side pain
• mental depression
• muscle aches and pains
• nausea
• nervousness
• painful or difficult urination
• paranoia
• quick to react or overreact emotionally
• rapidly changing moods
• restlessness
• shaking
• shivering
• shortness of breath
• sleepiness or unusual drowsiness
• sore throat
• stuffy or runny nose
• sweating
• trouble with sleeping
• unusual tiredness or weakness
• vomiting

I think it's time to talk to the doc and see what other options are out there. He mentioned Lamictal when I switched to Keppra, and I heard a lot of people at camp saying good things about their experiences on it, so maybe I'll try that.

Post Camp Depression

I know that a lot of you who read this also come to Camp EAGR with me. For some reason, this year after camp I seem to be really depressed. It's weird, because in all the years of going to camp it's never been this bad. Is anyone else feeling like this? I've talked to at least one other person who is feeling the same way.

Usually when I come home from camp I miss people for a couple days, but it's manageable. This year it's like I don't want to go into work, I don't want to come home, I don't want to look on Facebook, I don't want to do anything... I just want to be at camp with all of my friends.



I think part of it is me:

1. I don't really like my current job, so I don't normally enjoy going into work, but right now it's worse than normal.
2. I think some of it is the meds
1. I have been noticing some mental differences for a while, and I've been kinda ignoring them thinking that it's because of the new job, or new apartment, or the many other changes that I've made recently in my life. But I'm starting to think it's the Keppra, and I think I'm going to talk to my doc about that. Maybe switch meds again. Idk.
2. After hearing some other people talk at camp about being on Keppra and feeling angry, and feeling other weird things, I really think a lot of my imbalanced feelings are caused by the meds.
3. I came home to an empty apartment after camp for the first time ever
1. I'm used to talking about camp when I get home, and getting out all of my excitement... but I didn't do that this year. I think that might have something to do with it.

But I think some of it is just camp. There were a lot of awesome new counselors at camp, and I don't think I got to know them as well as I would like. I feel like I need more time with those people as much as I need more time with the "regulars".

Some of it is that I've gotten myself into such a routine at home that my life has become fairly boring outside of things like camp. Routines are great for forming habits - and I've formed a routine to start working out and eating healthier - but routines are also boring. It's like I do the same thing all the time, and I'm just going through the motions of life. Camp is different. At camp we have a schedule, but every day still holds new and exciting things.

I also feel like I was building a fairly nice relationship with someone before camp, then during and after camp things seem to have taken a turn. There are a few people who might know what I'm talking about here, but not many. However, I feel kind of hurt by the fact that I'm suddenly second best, behind someone who is usually the reason for nothing but complaining. But that whole situation could be another blog post entirely if I wanted.

NOTE: If you do know who this is regarding, please don't post names publicly. I didn't state names for a reason.

Anybody have any ideas of how to get out of this rut and start feeling like me again? I've already outlined a few possibilities: Change meds - but that's a long process, talk to someone about camp - but that's hard to do during the week with my work schedule, change my routine - but I don't think that will really help as I've kinda already done that.

First thing is: I want to see some of my camp friends more often. Carrie and I have already started talking about seeing people more often, and we need to get others in on it too. But I need something to get me back on track now, so that things like that can happen.

Camp EAGR 2013

One more year at camp has come and gone. It was amazing as always.

It started, as always, with the rejoicing and reuniting of the returning counselors, welcoming some new counselors - who by the way were all AWESOME, unpacking everything into the health lodge, doing some team building with the counselors, training in the dining hall, and then a night on the town in "downtown" Warsaw. (Downtown is in quotes because downtown Warsaw NY is about a 1-block area.)

Sunday was the annual trip to the Silverlake Diner, who was expecting us thanks to a call from yours truly a week earlier, and a last minute trip to Walmart to pick up any supplies that were left at home, maybe decorations for cabins, and some minor "contraband". (Food and other supplies that the kids are not allowed to have, but that us counselors tend to bring with us,)

Then, time to welcome the kids. I had 5 kids in my cabin this year, aged 15-17, and 1 co-counselor who was actually a camper of mine only a few years ago. And of course, they gave me my usual cabin. (Which is also one of the nicest cabins, but is at the top of the hill - and coincidentally, the highest point in Wyoming county.)
Chippewho? CHIPPEWAAAAAA!

I knew most of my kids from previous years - 2 were in my cabin last year, as well as a few times before that, 1 I had many times previously but not last year, and 1 I had never had, but had been at camp before. The last one was new. At 16 years old, he was spending his first week at Camp EAGR. By Monday night, he was already talking about returning next year.

We also started a new camp within a camp this year. This was the first year that we had a "Young Adult Camp" which has been tentatively named camp COAST. The name is not yet official, but that is the name that was thought of this week. The name includes the last initial of the 5 young adults who attended the first ever camp this summer, and the acronym tentatively stands for Camp Of Adult Skills Training. Again, all parts of this are subject to change, but the camp itself was really cool. All of the young adults in this camp were my campers over the past 2 years, and some of my campers from this year will likely attend the young adult camp next year. (Which has already been funded for next year!)

These kids got to do the high ropes course (Camp EAGR only does low ropes,) they went white water rafting at Letchworth State Park, and they learned some life skills that can be used in many different areas of life. Since these guys were stationed in the cabin next to mine, I took some time one night to teach them some strategies for starting a good fire. From lighting some birch bark, to getting some small twigs to light, to controlling airflow, and how to build it up once you have a nice base fire and some hot coals.



As I said before leaving I have more stories than can be held by any blog, so I will touch on some highlights of the rest of the week.

Nature was AMAZING! They had a 17-year old YMCA staff person handling the nature activities, and he was ridiculous smart. I have been going to this camp for 20 years now, and he taught ME things that I didn't know. He showed us plants that we had never seen, showed us some edible ones and some to avoid at all costs. (For the record, if you see a berry in the woods that looks like an eye - white with a small black dot in the center - stay away. As little as 2-3 of these can kill you.) We even found a plant that is hollow like bamboo, and he showed us MANY uses for this one plant. (Which, according to an EAGR counselor, is an invasive species from Japan.)

On our second nature activity, he took us to the hollow tree, which many of us have done before, but while we were there he showed us how to make a fire and had the kids roast marshmallows. We couldn't go into the hollow tree this year because there is a hive of honey bees in the tree now, and since the bees are endangered they were not allowed to kill or relocate the bees. Toby, our nature guide, said that the bees will likely be there for a long time because they are in a part of the tree which has a lot of access in and out, but yet they will stay warm and safe from predators.

Our campers enjoyed arts and crafts a lot this year. We had many different things to do and, as always with the older groups, the guys made things for the girls, and vice-versa.

We did fishing for the first time that I recall. The person running the fishing activity had some live minnows to use as bait for bass, and the kids fished with worms and caught some smaller fish. When a bass was on the line, the Y-staffer allowed the kids to real it in. One of the bass we caught was 2-feet long!

I saw a few snakes this year. 2 under the deck at the health lodge when we got there on Saturday, and 2 while we were fishing. One was a garter snake, the other was a black water snake. Not sure what the 2 under the health lodge were, but we saw one of them sticking out his tongue. One of the nurses found a fully intact snake skin and put it in a plastic bag. That was pretty awesome to see.

The opening and closing camp fires were pretty awesome. Mostly because some of the Camp EAGR staff did songs and skits to add to what the Y-staff usually does.


Some of the not-so-good...

The food. It has been a while since I've complained about the food at camp. Our cook over the last 5 years or so was AMAZING. Yes, it was still camp food, so it was always nice to get home and have a real meal. However, I could consider that food.

Not this year. One day we got tomato sauce in a bowl, and some hamburger buns, and they called it "Sloppy Joe". No, Sloppy Joe has a small thing called meat in it. This sauce had little or no meat. The meat loaf was hardly recognizable as such, the baked oatmeal literally looked like it had come out of someone's back side, and they even found a way to ruin taco day by making us go to the salad bar to get the lettuce, cheese, and other fixings besides meat and beans. That made the tacos take about 20 minutes to make, because the salad line was so long. Plus, this year we did family style instead of buffet style, and since they didn't put the food on warmers after it was prepared, we often received cold food. Needless to say, I was extremely grateful to get some Moe's at the end of our counselor meeting on Saturday.

My only seizure this week was during the closing camp fire on Friday night. I was called up to participate in a skit, and started into a simple partial seizure about halfway through. Luckily I wasn't an active part in the skit, so it didn't effect much as far as that was concerned. However, I did sit down after the skit, and did not participate in the dancing and other shenanigans for the rest of the fire. Also, my leg was already sore from all of the walking throughout the week, so after the seizure my right leg was to the point where I could hardly walk on it. I took a ride up the hill to the cabin for the first time in many years, and I went to bed relatively early that night.



There are probably plenty more good things to say, and a few more not so good things, but I would need so much more time to write about all of it. As always, I am tired, and sore, and glad to be home. But at the same time, I wish I could go back tomorrow after catching up on some sleep and healing up a bit.

I have pictures if I can find my camera. I'm pretty sure it's in the pocket of whatever pants I was wearing Friday night. I'll post pics when/if I find it.

Some of the "unofficially official" pictures from camp this year: http://paulkent.zenfolio.com/p826049182

20 years at Camp EAGR

Many of you who know me, know that next week marks one of the most important events in my life: Camp EAGR.

What is Camp EAGR? Well, EAGR stands for Epilepsy Association of Grater Rochester. (Which has since changed names at least once, but camp still keeps the EAGR name)

Camp EAGR is a summer camp for kids with epilepsy, which has been going 22 years as of this year. Why then is this post called "20 years at Camp EAGR" and not 22 years? Because I missed 2 years. I wasn't there the first year that they held camp, and I wasn't there in 2000, because I decided to go to football tryouts instead (which was a terrible decision, camp's more important than football.) So this will be my 20th year at Camp EAGR. 9 of those as a camper/CIT, 11 as a counselor.

Enough background though... If you want more information, it can be found here:
http://epiny.org/epilepsy-camp-eagr.php

Tomorrow marks the start of the 22nd year or Camp EAGR. Or, at least, for the counselors it starts tomorrow. The kids get there on Sunday, then well all leave on Saturday the 17th.

For those of you who know me, you know exactly how much camp means to me. It's a place where I can get away from all of the worries of life, where I can be with some of the people that I love most in life, and where I can truly be myself... if only for a week. And although I'm only there for a week every year, it is the one place that most feels like "home" to me.

So next week, I don't just get to volunteer for a week, I don't just get to see people who I only see once a year, I don't just get the rewarding feeling that I am making a difference in so many kids' lives - just as my counselors did for me, I'm also going home. For a week. Then I come back to this thing that most people call "real life".



Somebody recently asked me what I would do if I won the lottery. After thinking about it for a while... I think I would go work at camp all summer. Pay me minimum wage if you must pay me, I just want to be there all summer. However, I cannot afford to live on that kind of pay WITHOUT winning the lottery.

So that's it. My last post for a week. You will hear nothing more from this guy until August 17th. And at that point I will have more stories to tell than any blog could ever contain, I will have no energy to write any of it down (or even type,) and I will most likely be walking with a limp. (Oh, did I neglect to mention the fact that I find a way to hurt myself almost every summer as well? Oh well, that's part of the adventure of camp.)

Until then, I only hope that your week can be 10% as epic as mine will be.

2 much news for one post!

...part 2

I didn't want to make you wait long for part 2, so here it is. (this is the long part.)


Last night my mom was going through some things that she found in her basement, and today she gave me a call about some of her discovery.

She found a seizure log that she had kept of my seizures from birth to roughly 5 years old! Now, we both agreed that this log was probably not complete, but it's pretty awesome nonetheless.

It was a log that she kept in a small notebook, hand written, and apparently she even wrote on both sides of some pages. She said that on one page she wrote in pen, then on the back she wrote in pencil, and the pencil was hard to read because the ink had seeped through to the back of the paper. So instead of just scanning this notebook and sending it to me, she actually went through the trouble of typing it all out for me so that I could actually read it!

Some of these entries have dates, times, descriptions of the seizure, length of the seizure, whether or not they took me to the hospital, where the seizure happened, and in some cases, what I did after the seizure was over.

The first entry is actually from the day after I was born. "2 seizures with Apnea." Not sure what that apnea part means yet. I texted mom to ask and she never answered.
UPDATE: Mom just responded, apnea means that I stopped breathing.

The last entry that she found is actually the first seizure that I can remember. I was playing Sonic the Hedgehog on my Sega Genesis, with my sister watching. I was in a tall chair/stool, and fell backwards into a bean bag when the seizure happened. (I don't remember the falling, but I've been told that's what happened.) I could actually still tell you roughly the part of the game that I last remember seeing before the seizure. (I didn't make it very far before the seizure.) It was also the first time my sister saw me have a seizure.

I think it was that seizure that I remember waking up after it. She had moved me to the couch, with my head on her lap. I woke up, looked up into her eyes, and she said "you just had a seizure, go to sleep." And I did.
(Although that may be a memory of a different one, because the log says that I turned blue after the one on the stool, which means I probably woke up in an ambulance or in the hospital after that one. It may have actually been the one the day before the stool incident... because there is one the day before in the log as well.)

My favorite entry so far was this: a seizure that occurred on my brother's birthday, when I was less than 1 year old - "3.5 minute seizure. Jerking, then stiff, bent arms, eyes rolled back. After it stopped he went to play immediately, then seized again for 10 seconds."

Seriously? I had a seizure for over 3 minutes, then went to play? Wow, I was one tough kid apparently. My only question is - did I still go play AGAIN after the 10 second seizure that followed?



Some of the even more interesting information is the starting and stopping of medication. It's all here. "Off Dilatin, Started Dilatin, Completely off Dilatin, Penobarbitol - 5cc's 2x/day"

Why is that more interesting? Because of the LACK of information after every time it says that I was put on medicine.

Feb 24 - Started Dilatin 
March 29 - Completely off Dilatin
April 21 and 22, seizures both days - 22nd, back on Dilatin
Jan 13 - seizure

That's almost 9 months without a seizure being logged! The question is, were there seizures in there that weren't logged, or did I really go 9 months without a seizure because of the meds?

There is a LOT of information here, and I have just begun to process it. But from the looks of it, even as an infant my seizures were fairly controlled while I was on the meds. I called my mom to confirm this discovery and she agreed. She said that I was pretty controlled as long as I was on meds. According to her, the main times that I wasn't controlled was after growing, and before upping my dosage to accommodate for the new weight.

So much information, so little time. I'm going to do some processing of this information and I will report back with any new findings. (Plus, mom says there may be more to this log that she has yet to find.)



BTW - I have to say thinks to +Vicki Smith (AKA mom) for having the foresight to do this all those years ago, and for finding the information and allowing me to gain some more insight into my past.

Too much news for 1 post!

...Well close enough

A lot has happened in the past couple days, and I'm going to start with some fitness news.

Yesterday, I went to the gym for the last time before camp. It wasn't planned to be my last gym trip before camp, but since the gym is closed for the rest of the week, it ended up that way.

First and foremost, I weighed in yesterday at 219.7 lbs... the first time I've weighed in under 220! I know, it's not much below 220, but it's below, and I'll take it! It's not quite my (admittedly ambitious) goal of 215 before camp, but I have lost 15 pounds in 3 months, and I think that's pretty good.

Also, yesterday at the gym I biked 3.43 miles in 10 minutes, which averages to over 20.5 mph! That's fast, especially for an average speed over a 10 minute span! How fast, you ask? Well, I biked a lot in high school. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT! One day, there was one of those speed things that the cops put out, that show the speed limit and your current speed. Well, I broke the speed limit on this particular road by going 27 in a 25 zone on my bike. Like the weight thing, I didn't break the speed limit by much, but I did it. And I was on a bike, not in a car. That was probably the fastest I had ever gone on a bike.

Camp starts Saturday which means I'm probably going to lose some more weight next week. With all the hiking up and down hills, and running after energetic kids, I'm sure I'll lose some more weight there.

Speaking of camp, I've been 19 days seizure free now. For those of you who really know me, I know that doesn't sound like a lot compared to my previous records, but it is pretty good for these partials. The one I expected to come last week never happened. We'll see what happens at camp.

Want to know some even more exciting news on the epilepsy front??? Come back for part 2 of this post.