Dear Angela:

Thanks so much for your kind email. Believe me, since my book came out, I have heard from so many who have suffered either directly or indirectly from epilepsy. As I know so well, Epilepsy is a very confusing disorder which leaves everyone constantly grasping for help because you simply never know where to turn or what to do.

I'm so sorry to hear that your nephew, Trey, is suffering from epilepsy. To me, it seemed that just when we found some sort of answer through a new medication, I'd have another seizure and the grand mal seizures became more frequent as I became older. And as the frequency of the grand mal seizures increased, so did the intensity of the petit mal seizures. Believe me, I was a my wits end because absolutely nothing seemed to work when it came to prescriptions. In fact, I do honestly believe now that the meds compounded my situation because as they wore me down, I'd have more seizures. I found that with epilepsy, being run down led to more seizures. It's so difficult to gauge the proper combination of medications, proper food and the rest, and I constantly struggled to balance everything.

In addition, I honestly think the heat was bad for me in Las Vegas. In the summer of 1994, I really started to have more seizures. We had been building a home in southwest Las Vegas, so I was outside a lot and the period from late-May through August was really difficult.

In my case, I received a call from someone who told me about Dr. Andy Aung at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif.. I couldn't get an appointment with Dr. Aung the first time and the neurologist I met with at Scripps determined that the scar on the right side of my brain (the scar was the result of a high fever I had related to encephalitis when I was nine months old in 1951) was too close to the optic nerve for surgery.

However, once I finally got to Dr. Aung, his prognosis was different. After three tests, he sent me to Dr. Thomas Waltz, a neurosurgeon at Scripps and together they scheduled the surgery for Dec. 6, 1994. The day before the surgery I had four seizures and haven't had one since. I was addicted to Phenobarbital, so it took almost three years to detoxify. As I said in the book, getting off the Phenobarbital was the toughest part of the recovery because I was so bound-determined to rid it from my system.

Needless to say, I consider myself the absolute luckiest person on earth and when I hear stories like Trey's, it just breaks my heart.What I've found through the publishing of the book is that people not only need a good doctor, but also someone who truly understands what the person is going through. I remember only too well that when I was sick, I chose to keep things to myself and that was really a mistake. I didn't want to burden anyone with my woes and because of that I think I hesitated to reach out for help. When I finally got to Andy Aung, I found someone who listened and chose to lead me down the path to recovery. He was calmly aggressive in his quest to get the answers to my problems and immediately began turning my life around.

However, while my epilepsy was cured after finding help at Scripps, many others today are helped with medications. I can't stress enough the importance of a neurologist who can filter through the confusing and frightening aspects of epilepsy. 

In Dr. Brown (she is now with the neurology department at UMC) and Dr. Aung, we now have people whose own personal life experiences led them to entering the field of neurology.

Dr. Brown's father had epilepsy and Dr. Aung entered the profession because so many people in his homeland of Burma had been affected. They have seen the woes and personal tragedies related to the disorder, so they have even more reason to help others who are suffering with it.

With regards to the aura which I would experience heading into a seizure, I simply began feeling very weak, light headed and frightened. Looking back, it seems to me that a bad experience earlier in my life seemed to trigger a seizure. As an example, my folks had a very rocky marriage and as a little boy in the '50s and 60s, there were many, many bad times. If I thought of something that reminded me of those years, I'd begin to have an aura which would lead to a seizure. It was very difficult to explain to doctors back then and it wasn't until several years after the surgery that I finally began to figure things out.

With regards to the copies of the program, please call Suzanne at the Nevada Broadcasters Association at 794-4994. I also forwarded your message to both Suzanne and Karen Gordon, who works with Dr. Brown, so I'm sure they will be contacting you. I believe that the NBA is going to broadcast the program in its archives sometime soon, so ask Suzanne about that, too.
Dr. Brown is an epileptologist and although I only first met her when we did the radio show together, I was immediately impressed with her knowledge of epilepsy and her compassion for those who suffer from it. In truth, I told both Suzanne and Bob Fisher (the host of Observations) that I truly wish she had been here when I got home from the hospital because I think she could have helped me understand some of my concerns after the recovery. The folks at Scripps were wonderful answering our many questions via phone calls, but I didn't have anyone here to speak with at the time. One of the biggest battles I had both before and after the surgery was the fear of not understanding what I was experiencing, so I think Dr. Brown could have quelled many of my fears and helped me understand what I was experiencing while also pointing the way to at least dealing with the seizures.

With regards to the book, the quickest way to get it is probably at the Borders stores at Decatur and Sahara, Lake Mead and Rainbow and the West Charleston location (I'm told that the Green Valley store is sold out). They have it in the general psychology department of each Borders store.

However, should you need further help finding it, please let me know and I'll be happy to get it to you.
  
Best,

Mike