2011-10-28: Seizure review

A bit late, but here's an update on the seizure from last weekend.

Around 3:30pm October 23rd, 2011 was my 2nd ever seizure. It happened at Winners in front of Zoe (my 12 year old daughter). Long story short, I seem to be fine now. No side effects.

Long story made long, here's more details. I had no head-ache or other warning. I was fine, just looking for clothing for Zoe. Then my right hand started shaking. When I told my hand to go back to the handle of the shopping cart, it ignored me and started rising (same symptom as in April 2011). Then I said to Zoe, "Oh oh, I think I'm having a seizure." I then started to get closer to the floor knowing what would come next. (In April, I was fully standing and fell back onto my open dishwasher door then onto the tile floor giving my back and head a couple of bruises.) I managed to get 3/4 of the way to the ground and lost complete control, falling the final 1/4 distance to the floor onto my back. I could still hear Zoe say, "Daddy? Are you faking?" I tried to respond but couldn't. Then I felt my whole body get wracked by electric impulses. Like I had just stuck my finger in a socket and felt the tingling over my whole body. I then lost conciousness.

From what others have said, the seizure lasted about a minute. I bit my lip (hard, with blood) and frothed a bit at the mouth. That's when Zoe realized I wasn't faking. A passer-by called the paramedics and the store manager called my wife (Zoe knew our home number). I remember starting to come too on a stretcher still in the store with the paramedics, my wife and Zoe around me. I remember them asking questions but not being very helpful with answering them. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital I regained cognative abilities enough to answer all their questions, though my answers were slow at first. By the time we reached the hospital I had pretty much recovered. It took about 15 minutes to recover in total so everything happened pretty fast. In April, recovery took about 30 minutes. There was no witness to April's seizure, so we don't know how long that lasted.

At the hospital, we wanted to know what happened. When they found out I was in paliative care, everything became optional. Do I want to be resussitated (CPR) if required? Yes. Do I want a blood test? Yes. Do I want a CT of my head? Yes. OK, then we had to wait 5-6 hours for the results as we sat in the hospital twiddling our thumbs (we didn't come prepared with books or other ways to pass the time).

The lab work was inconclusive. The CT showed no new tumors (just the two we already knew about). April 2 cm tumor has shrunk to 1 cm. The later 0.8 cm tumor has shrunk to 0.5 cm. However, there was still noticeable swelling surrounding the 2 cm tumor area. Since the 2 cm tumor was in the left brain (which controls the right side of the body) it makes sense that its swelling was likely the trigger for the 2nd seizure.

After discussion with my oncologist, radiologist, and an attempt to get in touch with my neurologist (unsuccessful, apparently he got kicked out of his office by the city for running a business in a residential area... oops) we decided that for the next 4 days I'll go back onto 4 mg of dexamethasone per day to reduce the swelling in my brain, in my liver area (under floating ribs) and in my mid back (last two areas are causing major back pain lately).

I've spoken with my new occupational therapist provided by CCAC Halton. She suggests that a "lift chair" may assist with lower back problem. It is like a lazy boy reclining chair, but provides electric lift out of the chair. They also gave me a shower stool to sit on, so that I'm at less of a falling risk in the shower as I get more fatigued and in case I have another seizure.

Nothing like the feeling of aging extremely quickly. Kind of sucks.

Regards,
Shane