Tag: medicine

Happy Anniversary, Epilepsy

Four years ago this week, my son had his first seizure.

Four years.

Almost half his life.

He doesn’t remember the time before. Most days, neither do I. Our memories are of our new life that started the night his body contorted and stiffened on the floor of the arcade. It was the night that time stopped as we prayed that our son would come back to us and when I held his frozen body in a thunderstorm waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Even though his second seizure wouldn’t be for nearly two months, the fear and uncertainty that the first one had caused lingered. It turned out that time was the quiet before the storm…that feeling you get when the clouds darken and the air changes and you know the storm is close. The air filled with the same electricity that would soon wreak havoc on my son’s developing brain.

And then it happened. The second seizure burst free just as my son sat in his seat onboard an airplane. Another thirty minutes and the plane would have been in the air but, thankfully, the crew got him safely off the plane and on his way to the children’s hospital. Within a few months, his seizures would be out of control and we’d be back in the same hospital learning firsthand what status epilepticus was.

It would take nearly two years before my son was stable. But even then, we were still adjusting medication, dealing with side effects and behavioral issues, and occasionally using his rescue medication. He was stable, but not living the life we had planned. But by then we were beginning to realize that we needed a new plan.

Four years in, we’re still adjusting that plan. There hasn’t been a day that has not been affected by epilepsy. He’s had countless seizures. He’s been on and off medications and suffered endless side effects. He’s had a barrage of blood draws, EEGs, and other testing and had a myriad of therapies trying to restore what epilepsy had taken away. He’s been isolated from his peers and falling more behind in a world that doesn’t wait for people who can’t keep up, or are different, or need help.

After four years, I thought we’d be further along. I hoped he would outgrow his seizures or we’d at least have them under control. I thought we would have figured it all out. I thought we’d be able to get back to normal. But, instead, we had to change our definition of “normal” and learn how to live life with different expectations.

In these four years, I’ve learned a lot of other things, too. I think I am a better man, husband, and father than I was before this started. And we’ve had so many wonderful experiences and met some amazing people on our journey. But I can’t bring myself to be grateful. I can’t allow myself to acknowledge the things that are good because I don’t want to reward the monster that continues to attack my son. Our life is what it is in spite of epilepsy, not because of it.

Four years is a long time. But I know we have many years to go. We didn’t ask for this, and we don’t want it. But it looks like we’re going to be together for a while.

So, Happy Anniversary, Epilepsy.

I didn’t get you anything.

Because I hate you.

No Free Lunch

Early one morning, I was sitting in the living room writing when I heard my son leave his room and go in to the bathroom. He was in there longer than usual and I could hear the muffled sound of banging. After a few more minutes, he came out of the bathroom and I asked what had happened. He explained that he was washing the bucket we had given him the night before when he told us he had an upset stomach. He had thrown up in the middle of the night.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. My son has been on the ketogenic diet for more than two years. The “keto” diet is a high-fat diet used to treat hard to control epilepsy and it’s hard on his stomach. In addition to his seizure medication, the diet forces him to also take vitamin supplements and medicine for reflux, constipation, and acidosis. Constipation, diarrhea, cramping, and vomiting have been frequent visitors since my son was on the diet.

It’s not only hard on his body, it’s hard mentally, too. He can’t eat what we do or, if he does, he has to have a shot of oil or some other fat on the side. And he generally can’t have more of any one thing without adding more oil. He can’t have a slice of pizza. He can’t have a bowl of cereal or a bag of chips. When he’s at a birthday party, he can’t have a piece of cake or candy. We make modifications, like bringing along a “keto cupcake”, but it’s not the same. Because he is who he is, he endures with little complaint.

We make a handful of meals that he likes where the fat is hidden in the recipe. A soy flour and mayonnaise crust for pizza is one of his favorites. With that, there is fat in the crust and oil mixed in with the tomato sauce so he doesn’t need to have oil on the side. But we don’t have many of those meals, so we’ve been repeating the ones we do have for months.

To add dietary variety, the doctors want him to eat more “real” food. But for that we need a source of fat, which is generally a oil. And that’s what we did for dinner the night before that led to the bucket and the early morning cleanup.

We’ve lowered his ratio over the last year so that he needs less fat, but his diet is still more fat than not. I want to get him off the diet completely, but the doctors say it is working. It’s not enough to stop his seizures, but they think it’s helping his overall brain function and raising his seizure threshold higher than it would be off the diet. I’m less convinced, but I’m also the one that sees how hard the diet is for him every day. And there are certain rights of passage with food that I went through as a child. Eating an entire box of Lucky Charms. Folding a real piece of pizza in half and devouring it. Trying things at the farmer’s market. He’s missing out on all of it.

There is an acronym I remember from my economics classes that was also used in the Robert A. Heineken story The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. TANSTAAFL, or “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” is the idea that you can’t get something for nothing.

When we started the diet, we saw it as an alternative to more seizure medicine. It was supposed to be the prescription that helped his seizures without the side effects. It was supposed to give him a better quality of life. Maybe compared to another pharmaceutical, it did. But it didn’t come without its own downside.

Because everything comes at a price.

A Childhood In The Clouds

I wonder how my son is going to remember his childhood. Sometimes, I wonder if he is going to remember it.

My son and I watched a Philadelphia Eagles game and we saw a player that my son had met at the hospital. I asked if he remembered meeting him and he said that he didn’t. We met the player almost two years, so at first, I chalked it up to my son being too young to remember. But he was also in the hospital because he was having more seizures and because we needed to adjust his medication.

Like other medicines, epilepsy medications have a long list of side effects. But medicine that controls seizures targets the source of those seizures, the brain. As a result, the side effects show up in those areas that the brain controls, which is everywhere. We have sees these side effects alter his mood and behavior and impact his motor control. As he gets older, we’re also seeing how much they affect his ability to learn and his memory. Those side effects were likely there all along, hidden beneath the surface. But now that those skills are being tested, the latent effects are being revealed.

We’ve passed the three year mark of my son taking medicine for his seizures. Three years of my son’s brain in a constant fog. Three years of struggling to form solid shapes around thoughts and ideas. Three years of a childhood spent in the clouds.

Three years of exerting all his energy to focus on one task at a time. Three years of that focus sapping all his energy. Three years of wondering if there is enough energy or will left inside of him to enjoy an experience.

The more we explore, the more gaps we find. Milestone events never happened. People erased from existence. It’s impossible to tell whether the failure is storing the memory or recalling it. The result is the same, though. A void where a childhood should be.

My wife and I repeat stories of our adventures to him, and we show him the albums of pictures we’ve taken. I’m hoping by continuing to expose him to those memories that he will have something to remember. I don’t know if it will be because we’re unlocking old memories or creating new ones through our stories. I’m hoping his brain doesn’t know the difference. I’m hoping that when he looks back on this time in his life, he’ll have something to find.