At about the same time that I was diagnosed with breast cancer Marcel began having "little spells". He would freeze, sometimes in mid sentence, his eyes would roll upward and his eyelashes would flutter. We would try to speak to him during these moments and he was unreachable. They would only last a few seconds and happen about once a week. Over the last six months they starting coming more and more frequently. Every day, and sometimes several times a day. He was having seizures. His neurologist scheduled him for an EEG to determine what type.
waiting for EEG; Stanford
We had to keep him up until midnight the night before and wake him at 5am. He could not fall asleep, even for five minutes, before the test. Besides the EEG they also did these light strobe and hyperventilation tests. It was quite scary to see how the hyperventilation test induced a seizure. I kept calling his name. He couldn't hear me. Finally I shook him. He woke up and calmly said, "Oh". It all took about two hours. That was two weeks ago. The doctor was out of the country and we weren't able to get the results until yesterday. Talk about waiting on pins and needles.
thirty electrodes attached
pulling off thirty electrodes
amusing himself
going home to wash the glue out of his hair
We finally got the results from the doc yesterday, who casually said, "So, as you know the EEG was abnormal." NO! We didn't know. How could we know? You were out of the country! What a thing to say. As it turns out, Marcel has epilepsy. He suffers from Absence Seizures. They generally come on in childhood and are outgrown by the teen years. I'm still doing my research. So far, from what I can tell, the side effects of the "preferred" drug for treatment are worse than the symptoms themselves. A lot worse. I'll be taking my time, as usual, deciding on the best and healthiest approach. Marcel is doing just fine. I was pondering the perspective on it last night. How in our culture we always look at physical symptoms in a scientific way. I like to think of it as a sort of stigmata. Marcel. That special one :)
artwork at Stanford, Deloss McGraw
