November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month and the period strikes very close to home.
I don’t have epilepsy now, but I did have it until I was almost 44 years of age. When I was nine months old in 1951, a nasty mosquito infected with the encephalitis virus bit me. Not long after the bite, I started to sleep more often and while my parents were concerned, they felt that a baby sleeping more was simply a part of being an infant.
However, serious concern set in one evening when their baby suddenly started having convulsions right in the middle of a friendly card game. I’m told I quit breathing and only quick emergency work by one of the family friends kept me from dying.
The next thing anyone knew, I was in a coma and would remain in that state for a week. The encephalitis virus had infected the brain and I would remain hospitalized in Intensive Care.
When I awoke from the coma, it was thought that the concern had subsided. I bounced back and my grandmother quickly told my parents that radiant smile of mine was proof enough that I had fully recovered.
As far as anyone knew, the encephalitis had not left any lasting effects. Life was good until at the age of about seven, I recall a very strange sensation of fear rushing through my body. The episode made no sense especially considering that it lasted only a few minutes.
The problem was that I had just what would be the first of thousands of epileptic seizures. While the first seizure was evident by a slight drooping of the face along with a blank stare that lasted for a few moments, the truth was that I was about to begin a mysterious journey that would last for decades.
For the most part, I was able to hide the seizures until I awoke one evening with a terrific headache. The next thing I knew, the seizure had advanced into a full-blown grand mal seizure in which the body stiffened and jerked uncontrollably. I would awaken to see several family members alongside the bed explaining that I needed to go to the hospital immediately.
The seizures would continue creating concern that one work eventually kill me. Worse yet, there was the awful fear that I would have a seizure while driving a car. The thought of hurting someone else as the result of having a seizure was a fear I would carry with me.
No medicine helped and in fact, I was allergic to just about every prescription. Every medication carried with it a side effect. I was frustrated and scared.
Then, in December of 1994, doctors at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, Calif. determined they could remove the epilepsy from my life by removing a five-centimeter piece of my right temporal lobe in a very delicate brain surgery procedure. The surgery worked and I haven’t had a seizure since the day before the surgery.
Even better yet, I no longer need medications to regulate my life. I am free of epilepsy and there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t take at least a short minute to realize how lucky I am.
However, there are a reported two million people affected with epilepsy. I think I know what every one of them is going through since I have traveled that bumpy road, too. In fact, every time I hear that someone crashed a vehicle because of a “medical incident,” I think back about my own close calls.
National Epilepsy Awareness Month is a crucial period in which special attention is brought to the forefront of a mysterious disorder that can strike without warning.
The great strides to conquer the disorder are all-important and the month of November is a huge example of the progress that has been made to conquer the disorder.
Perhaps one of the greatest advances has been in Las Vegas where the Nevada Neurosciences Institute at Sunrise Health has made incredible progress. With neurologist Dr. Samir Bangalore and neurosurgeon Dr. Stuart Kaplan leading the charge, three surgeries to correct epilepsy have been conducted in the past few months.
Considering that I still remember vividly returning from Scripps on Dec. 13, 1994 only to discover that we had lost all of my medications, I know first-hand how terrified I was returning home knowing that Las Vegas was essentially a city weak in many medical elements including epilepsy.
That has all changed in Southern Nevada, an area where great improvements are being made in the medical community.
Thank God. From someone who knows personally, helping people who are suffering from epilepsy is vitally important. In Southern Nevada, those living with the disorder no longer need to leave town for help.
Mike Henle is a Las Vegas freelance writer and the author of “Through the Darkness: One Man’s Fight to Overcome Epilepsy.”
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