Tag: seizures

Throwing It Back

We walked along the shore of Atlantic City. The beach was quiet with only a few other souls in view. The sun warmed the winter air to a comfortable temperature and cast stark shadows of the shells on the sand. The seagulls circled silently around us riding the current in the air. The waves rhythmically pushed themselves ashore. They darkened the sand to an almost black and erased the footprints that my son had left moments before.

That morning along the beach, my son took to launching enormous clam shells back into the sea. The inhabitants had been the unwilling dinner guests of another sea creature or one of those circling seagulls. Now, their empty shells laid scattered along the shore. I watched as my son scurried along the sand, finding the biggest ones, and brought them up to the water’s edge. The ocean had given up the shells to the land and now my son was sending them back.

Since my son was young, he has always liked to throw things in the water. He liked to see how far he can throw something against the limitless backdrop of the ocean. There were no walls to bounce off, no cars to avoid, only infinity against which to test his strength. After he hurled an object into the sky, he would track it through the air until it reached its destination. Would it skip or would it splash? Either was acceptable, as long as it was far. On the really good ones, he’d turn to me and ask if I saw how far it went. Of course I was watching, I told him, but he was already looking for his next projectile.

As I watched him throw shell after shell, I thought about the things I’d like to throw into the sea. I’d start by taking his seizures from him. Like a piece of paper, I’d crumble them up into a ball until they held their shape. I’d grip it like a fastball and wind up with enough torque that, when I let go, the seizures would disappear over the horizon. I’d do the same with his medicine and their side effects. His learning and attention issues would be the next to go, followed by his fatigue and ataxia. Over and over, I’d crush these afflictions into dense spheres and throw them with all my strength. Whether they skipped or splashed, I only want them far away from my son, somewhere at the bottom of the sea.

February 14, 2017
Where Care Lodges, Sleep Will Never Lie

I walked from the living room to the kitchen, passing the door that led down to my son’s room. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a tuft of red hair sticking through the doorway. I stopped, tilted my head to the side, and saw an eye widen with the realization that the person it was attached to had just been caught.

This was the third time he was out of bed. He was restless and did not want to sleep alone. I slowly pulled open the door and asked him what he needed. “I was wondering,” he said, looking down at the floor, “if someone wanted to lay with me downstairs.” During the last few weeks, when his seizures were worse and when we were on the road, we often slept in the same bed. Now that we were home, we were transitioning back to our normal sleeping arrangements. This anxiety was an anticipated side effect. On the first night, he was so exhausted that he fell asleep in his own bed before he could plead his case for one my night in ours. On this second night, though, following a long afternoon nap, he was in a better position to resist.

“Come on, buddy,” I said as I led him back down in to his room. I climbed in to his bed and he followed, laying down next to me and putting his fingers in his mouth. By the light of his nightlight, I could see him adjust his body in to its ready-to-sleep position, and the tell-tale sign of impending sleep where he picks gently at his upper lip soon followed. His breath began to lengthen and, after only a few minutes, he was asleep.

On the nights that followed, we brought him back up to our room because his morning seizures had once again gotten worse and it was easier on all of us to be in the same room when they happened. No late night trips down the stairs and fumbling through the dark to find him sitting up in his bed; instead, we were next to him to reassure him and coax him back to sleep.

This has been the pattern of our lives for the past two years. When we think we are getting a handle on his seizures, we transition him back to his room. When he is in his bed, I vigilantly watch the monitor throughout the night and listen for any signs our most unwelcome intruder. When his seizures inevitably get worse again, we bring him back in to our room and spend the night uncomfortably cramped in a small bed, waiting for the sounds and uncontrollable movements that accompany the attack on my son’s brain.

If I seem tired, it’s because I am. Sleep is sporadic and short and only serves to keep me functional the next day. Some days, it’s barely enough to keep the lights on, but I find a way. Because most of us that are living this life don’t have the luxury or desire to stop because if we do…what we miss could be everything. So we stay on watch, careful and committed, for as long as we are needed.

This is what it is like to be the parent of a child with uncontrolled seizures.

Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

August 25, 2016
Five Seconds

They come in the early morning. Just as the sky is starting to lighten but hours before any of us want to be awake, these unwelcome visitors start as a misfiring in my son’s brain before traveling through his body and entering our world.

His seizures come like rolling waves. The first wave is long and drawn-out. It serves as the siren, alerting us . His body stiffens, his lungs slowly expel their content in a low, distinct moan. I wake up, roll over, put my hand on his chest, and tell him that it’s going to be okay.

One-one thousand.

A series of shorter waves come next. His body loosens slightly, then tenses again with a grunt. The cadence of the waves becomes steady beneath my hand.

Two-one thousand.

I sit up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. They adjust to the dark and I can see my son’s body convulse. His eyes flutter, matching the timing of the repeating pattern of his body.

Three-one thousand

My perception of time goes awry. A few seconds have passed, but the agony that I feel acts as a multiplier and those seconds feel like forever. I have time to wonder whether these seizures will end soon or whether they will keep their tormenting hold on my little boy. There are no signs, no clues to help me predict the size of the storm. The only thing to do is to wait and to keep counting.

Four-one thousand.

The waves elongate slightly and are less intense, which gratefully means the end is near. I start to rub my son’s chest again and reassure him. I want my voice to be the first thing he hears. I want to give him a safe place to return.

Five-one thousand.

The seizures release their grasp on my son and his lungs fill violently with air as he desperately inhales. He sits up in bed, trying to get his bearings. He’s teetering between sleep and the unwanted awakening that his firing neurons have forced upon him.

I continue to watch him as the waves dissipate. Sometimes he simply turns over and falls back asleep. I like those times the best because its like he rides the waves of seizures safely back to shore. Other times, the waves crash his tiny frame in to the rocks. He cries and it breaks my heart even more.

July 14, 2016
Fatherhood And Preparing My Son For A Future With Epilepsy

This post is part of the Epilepsy Blog Relay™ which will run from June 1 through June 30. Follow along and add comments to posts that inspire you!

Today is Father’s Day.

This morning, like most weekend mornings, I’m going to wake up to the sound of my son pushing the door to our room open, the squeaky hinges announcing his arrival. I’ll open my eyes and watch him toss his green and white blankets and a few of his stuffed animals on to the bed, climb over me and lie down in between my wife and I. He’ll put his fingers in his mouth, close his eyes, and snuggle up next to us, the sound of him sucking his fingers right next to my ear keeping me from returning to sleep. I don’t mind, though. This is how most weekends go, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

It’s in these early morning hours, as I lie awake in bed next to my family, that I sometimes think big thoughts. When I was a new father, still overwhelmed with idea of being responsible for another life in this world, I would have grand thoughts about the type of world my son would live in. Would there be enough food and water for everyone? Should I be recycling more? What about clean air? Should I get a more fuel-efficient car? Should I bike to work?

As he got older, and as I settled in on the idea that he’s more durable than I had assumed children would be, those early morning thoughts turned to more hopeful things. What number would he wear on his jersey in the NHL? How old would he be the first time he saw the earth from space? How often would they let me visit him in the White House?

For the past two years, after my son was diagnosed with epilepsy, I started asking different questions. These questions were shaped by our experiences struggling to control his seizures, managing his medicine and the ketogenic diet, and trying to normalize his life as much as possible. Would he ever be seizure free? Will he be able to live on his own one day? How can I best prepare him for the challenges ahead? How can I teach him to love himself and believe in himself against the stigma that comes with having epilepsy?

The last question is one that I’ve been thinking about more lately. He’s only in kindergarten, but there have already been incidents where he has been made to feel different because he has epilepsy. Questions about why he misses so much school and leaves early, or the snickers from classmates that come from his bizarre ketogenic lunch that sometimes includes taking a shot of oil, I can see him starting to pull away. He’ll sit by himself, or he’ll tell us he doesn’t want to bring a lunch to school. This is already happening, and he’s only in kindergarten.

The more involved I become with the epilepsy community, the more I get a glimpse of the challenges ahead for my son. I read the callous, insensitive tweets from the uninformed, misguided people who post messages about “being glad that they don’t have epilepsy” or how a video or light show “almost gave them epilepsy”. I read the messages of sadness and despair from those living with epilepsy and the stories of discrimination, and about how epilepsy “isn’t being a real thing” because there aren’t any visible signs.

There are many mornings when I’m lying next to my son and I get scared. I don’t want that world to squash the light inside the little boy who is so brave and who cares so much for those around him and who loves and who dreams incredible things. I’m worried that I am not equipped to help my son navigate that world, and that I will fail him…fail at the greatest thing that I will ever do, and that is being a dad.

On those days, when I seem to need it most, he will roll over and puts his arm around me. I instantly feel better. I remember that the most important thing I can do for my son is to love him unconditionally, which I do in abundance.

I think about that community where I have seen so much sadness and I remember the overwhelming feelings of support and hope that are much more common. They share their stories, many of whom you may read as part of this blog relay, and I, too, am hopeful and inspired to lend my voice to the choir…to sing with them the stories of what it means to be the dad of a child with epilepsy, the struggle, the joy, and the lessons that I learn along the way.

Maybe it will be this morning, when I won’t be awoken too early by the sound of a creaking door, or him sucking his fingers. Maybe I’ll feel confident that I’m doing my part by advocating for my son, and I’ll think about how far we have come, and that I’m leading with love and helping build a foundation in him that will help him face the challenges that will be ahead. Maybe this morning I will be able to fall back asleep, only to be awoken a few hours later by the four most magic words that will remind me how lucky I am and how hard I will fight.

“Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.”

NEXT UP: Be sure to check out the next post tomorrow by Whitney Petit at Changing Focus: Epilepsy Edition for more on Epilepsy Awareness. For the full schedule of bloggers visit livingwellwithepilepsy.com. And don’t miss your chance to connect with bloggers on the #LivingWellChat on June 30 at 7PM ET.

June 19, 2016
Keeping The Lid On

We had a few good weeks. After a year on the ketogenic diet and what seemed like the constant juggling of medicine, we were only seeing an occasional seizure in the early morning. The behavioral issues leveled out, even if the problems with attention and ataxia did not. But we felt stable enough that the conversation with our neurologist turned to talks of lowering one of my son’s medicines.

There was one medicine, in particular, that we started last year while we were living on the neurology floor of the hospital. It was one of the rounds on the bombardment of medicines that my son was given to battle the endless onslaught of seizures attacking his brain. After the smoke cleared, we left the hospital with a long list of prescriptions that included a few pills of questionable effect. Now that we were relatively stable, we decided to lower the dose of the first medicine to see if it was working and hopefully lessen any its side effects that were burdening my son.

The first reduction (with every medicine, there is a gradual weaning, not an abrupt stoppage) was uneventful. We did not see an increase in seizures, but we also did not see a reduction of side effects. After the second reduction, though, we started to see a change. Instead of confining themselves to the early morning hours, we started to see seizure activity during the day, as well. The myoclonic jerks that, in hindsight, acted as our canary in the epileptic mine slowly came back. At first, there were only a few…so few that we probably missed them initially. But then there were more, and they were hard to ignore. Then the tonic-clonic seizures also crept in to the daytime. Then the most telltale signs of a problem returned…the exhaustion, the uncontrollable sadness, slurring and having a hard time finding words, and the anger.

Our neurologist scheduled an EEG that confirmed that the subclinical seizures were also back and his EEG background was a mess. The report showed that the medicine that we suspected wasn’t helping had been working, so we again adjusted course and started raising the dosage.

Unfortunately, it was too late. By the time we realized that the medicine was working, the seizures were already cascading through my son’s brain, and it would take days before the increased dose would have an effect. We had taken the lid off the pot and it was boiling over.

As the seizures continued and the effects of each seizure lingered longer, we used our rescue medicine to buy us some time until the increase in dosage kicked in. We made it through the night, but the next morning the seizures and my son’s exhaustion and processing difficulties continued. “My brain is still going backwards,” my son said, which was his way of communicating that something was still wrong. We contacted our neurologist and by that night, we found ourselves admitted to the neurology floor.

The technicians hooked him up to an overnight EEG and within an hour our neurologist came in to tell us that his readout was still a mess. The plan was to monitor him to determine if we needed to introduce a temporary medicine to hold us over until we were back up to our working dose of his regular medicines, but the bridge medicine was one that, while it worked for seizures, brought with it rage.

We spent the night watching the EEG screen, pushing an alarm for each seizure we saw and calling out in to the night which type of his many seizures we were reporting. That night was a combination of a lack of sleep, concern for our son, and dreading the threat of the temporary medicine. By early morning, my son had gone a few hours without a seizure and I fell asleep next to him on his bed.

We woke up the next morning and my son started to feel better. The doctors came in and said, while his EEG still wasn’t great, it was trending in the right direction and that we could go home. While it seemed terrifying to leave while things were still “not great”, we learned last year that a positive trend is enough to go home with.

As we left the hospital, I knew, like I do every time, that this wouldn’t be our last time there. While this episode seemed like it was caused by a dosage change, there is always the concern that an illness will cause more seizures, or that a medicine stopped working, or that it’s a progression of my son’s condition.

We seem to be just trying to keep the lid on his seizures and the side effects of the medicine we use to try to control them, when all we really want is for someone to turn down the heat.

June 9, 2016