Woohoo! Today I had my appointment with the new neurologist who I was only able to see thanks to a friend who pulled in a favor with a prominent neurologist who then made the connection and… networking may not get me employment but it got me the best neurologist I’ve had in perhaps forever! And […]
Tag: epilepsy
Wasps Are Mean and “Argh”
Today is the calendar reminder of how my mom died on this day three years ago. I also realized I hadn’t made a blog post for three days soooooooooo… I am also realizing that I’m not especially communicative or creative when focusing on staying cheery and achieving the regular goals during weeks I feel are […]
Anniversaries and Holidays Which Evoke All Emotions
When you experience loss, you suddenly have new days to dread. Or celebrate. It depends on how you’re coping with your loss. I honestly don’t know anyone who genuinely looks forward to a death anniversary like “OH WOW IT’S ALMOST THE DAY MOM DIED. I CAN’T WAIT TO CELEBRATE HER!!!” but I’m sure you’re out […]
GOOD MORNING 🛎
Where am I? Are the police busting down our door? And then… what day is it? If the police are busting down our door, I want to know what day it is. That was the cognitive scene today at exactly six in the morning. It was a bit surreal as a loud bang woke my […]
“Want a beer?” and Other Life-Saving Techniques
“Want a beer?” is what I’d hear if I walked into a Wisconsin friend’s house because it’s what is first said when terrible (and good) things are actively happening. I’m so demoralized and not surprised by all the news reports about American violence of late I’m going to talk about drinking alcohol. However, I’m not […]
“Is the American Health System That Bad?” Asked my Scottish/Not Scottish Friends. “Well, It Depends Who You Are.”
My husband David and I lived in Edinburgh, Scotland 2007-2010. Since his mom is 100% Scottish (though she resides in America but not in this photo because she came to visit us when we lived in Scotland), her family still lived there and we were therefore able to spend time with them. One time we […]
Same Rant, Now With Castle View
Rough day yesterday. 911. Emergency room. Parking lots. In any case, a reminder to not allow meaningless, small stuff to dominate time because our time is short. And this reminds me of feeling the same way in Scotland: tired. One day, while living in Edinburgh and feeling overwhelmed by deadlines and recent deaths and academia, […]
What David Saw
So we bought a haunted house in Madison, Wisconsin. A wise financial decision. Yet, throughout the four and a half years we lived there, I never saw anything. I heard things and I felt things but I never saw anything. At the same time, around the time we bought the house, my dad was about […]
Is This Chemical Or Am I Authentically Feeling This Calm/Honest
Meds. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 A few weeks ago I did a DIY, 72 hour EEG which revealed that I was experiencing an impressive number of seizures though I had no idea of this. But that could be just another seizure. My current neurologist believes that a lot of the actions I take are due to “seizures”. Not […]
Don’t Move Into a Haunted House
I’ve been told that epileptics are prone to paranormal activity but I’d say most people are fair game if you move into a place with black handprints up and down the basement wall a la Blair Witch. My husband, our mastiff rescue Hemingway and I moved to Pittsburgh last year to fail at starting a […]
“Well, I’ll Just Stop Eating Then…”
Super share. I can’t speak for anyone else but myself… but since my teenage anorexia was an indirect product of my teenage epilepsy, I’m going to super share. 😐 Eating disorders are largely a manifestation of feeling the fuck out of control. “My life is spiraling out of control and I’m also 16 so… yes, […]
Witnessing Tonic-Clonic, Formerly Known as Grand Mal, Seizures
There is nothing a parent can really do to stop it or make it better while a grand mal/tonic-clonic seizure is happening. But there has been progress.
Being Thirteen and WTF Are Temporal Lobe Seizures?
I attended a free private Lutheran school from kindergarten through 8th grade. For 9th grade all us St. Johns kids had to transfer schools because the grades in our school ran out. Some of my good friends left for junior high after 6th grade and were really happy to be “liberated” but I was content […]
Yahtzee! Finding Medication That Doesn’t Make It Worse
Society has not been kind to epileptics. Society is often a psychotic bully so it’s no surprise. In earlier times, epileptics were worshipped/feared because people thought the seizures were due to gods speaking through a human and, being human, all a human could do was seize in response. But gods didn’t want to talk to […]
Ambulatory EEG #1: Getting Creative with Quarantine Activities
My hellish week of doing an ambulatory DIY EEG at home during the coronavirus quarantine
ORIGINS
My unnatural development of self (“growing up”) was quite an ugly little process and it wasn’t especially smooth or quick. For example, by the time I became a high school senior I was probably equivalent to Stage IV-A[1] of Seth Brundle/Jeff Goldblum’s transformation in The Fly. But, just like Seth Brundle, I eventually figured it […]
Thirty-Eight Resolutions From the Past
When I was trying to finish my doctorate, I often found I couldn’t. Thus, since resolutions are useless, I decided to come up with some because useless things are my specialty, and as usual I couldn’t write about the things I was supposed to be writing about. But I could of course write to complain […]
Brain Wars!!! 