Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Sleep -- Music

I barely slept on Sunday night in anticipation of my steroid treatment on Monday. I get nervous like something's going to go wrong; that's just me, I've always been that way.

In general, I haven't been sleeping well, maybe 4-5 hours a night with an hour during the day. Today has been completely different, but really, exactly the same. Last night I got 2-3 hours and this afternoon I only could muster up 45 minutes!

I'm happy to report that there was no seizure yesterday, but with little sleep, the risk gets higher and higher with each hour.

--

On a different note, I've been trying to find a hobby. That's kind of a funny sentence to write. Pre-epilepsy, I was really interested in photography, but for some reason or another that passion has yet to re-emerge.

I've always had a love for music but it's flew under the radar. I just assumed that it was a given, "music... yes." I mentioned to Sara that I was going to really explore my passion for music, (paying special attention to the term passion, just having a fair interest in music isn't going to be enough to keep my attention).

I'm also getting kind of nostalgic by picking up cassette tapes along with traditional digital media. Online, you can pick up a used cassette for as little as a dollar and not only is it nice to be expecting something in the mail, it's like I'm looking through old photos to connect me with my past. It's healthy and really, very refreshing to hold a cassette and hear the play button pop when the tape needs to be turned. Generation X... the cassette generation.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

360° in 24 Hours

I mentioned in Friday's post that all the positive energy that I have could be sucked out in an instant; well that's what a seizure is! I had a seizure that night, the kind where I lose consciousness. It was painful and confusing, but after a good sleep and some heavy drugs, I woke up with the same positive attitude as Friday.

If you permit me, I'd like to elaborate on the details of the seizure. After a could days, I start to put together images of a seizure into usable memories.

Sara and I were driving back home from a doctors appointment; it was already dark. We were nearing our neighborhood (a little town center), when I immediately tasted play-doh and didn't recognize anything around me... only Sara. To say I didn't recognize anything is not to say I didn't have a deep understanding of where I was, which is the case. It's more like everything around me is now a different color, lights are in different places and my south-facing windows and now facing north. Odd, right?

My VNS has made it so I only lose consciousness in the most extreme cases. In this case, I don't remember Sara driving from the parking lot to the front of our building to help me upstairs. After I was home, I was having little seizures over and over for about 30 minutes. I took two Ativan and everything slowed down and eventually came back into focus.

After all of this, a smile is back on my face. Saturday night Sara decided to take me to a movie premier/screening of "Somebody Up There Likes Me" with Nick Offerman (Ron on Parks and Recreation). The Q&A section of the night was great, he is hilarious. Then she took me to a restaurant where I had the best reuben sandwich possibly conceived by man (sorry mom!). To top it off, we got home, glued ourselves to the couch and watched Justin Timberlake on SNL. It was a big F-U to my brain, basically saying that I don't have time for this shit... I have a life to live.