The day I "woke" up Irish

Chapter Four

Being an Epileptic 

 Well having epilepsy isn’t easy. One of the first things that doctors 'do is stick you in an MRI to see where the seizures are coming from and with my pacemaker sitting in my chest made that hard. Because it would certainly mean instant death once the turn the machine on. So that’s when the doctors played Russian roulette with different drugs to slow my seizures down. But none of the medication that I was given helped my looming depression that slowly took over my life. I had gained weight and ate very little. My back teeth started to fall apart and that’s not even the worst of it. Most doctors don’t tell you much about having seizures or that you could die in your sleep. Sorry about that part. The in your face with the death part when you take a nap or fall asleep at night. Fun times.

 Each medication out there has side effects and most people are ok with the simpler ones but the side effects for seizure patients may vary. In my situation,  I have  tried a few and one of them was called Depakote. That medication should take care of seizures and depression. The only thing it did do was make me fat and make me lose hair. Yeah, I am vain. I didn’t need any help on being fat I was already there. Next, they gave me Lamictal.  

 Now that medication would have been wonderful, but it kept me awake for over a week. I have suffered from insomnia for a long time. I have always had to take something to help me fall asleep and then I would only sleep for about four hours and I would spend that tossing and turn. So, my doctor changes that medication fast.  Finally, in the end, I was on Keppra and what is called Trileptal. They helped with the seizures but not the mind-searing headaches that had my head in the toilet trying not to throw up. 

 Which never really made my failing  eyesight any better either. At one time I was on well over 16 different medications. Four of them happened to use to control my seizures and the others were to control the side effects. Migraines, nausea, dizziness ,and insomnia were just a few of the things that I had to look forward to every day. Now the Keppra was doing a real number me. In my family, we were born with anger and the Keppra side effect that has had many people is called Keppra Rage.

  I will tell you that Keppra rage is real. Some doctors don’t believe in it, but I am here to tell you it's real as that drink that’s in front of you.  When I had made a choice to go back to school, I jumped on it. I had been on disability for a while and I wanted to join the rest of the living so to speak. . A tech school to get my clinic MA diploma. They had it set up nicely there. A small break room with vending machines and some microwaves so we can eat something , you know like adults. Well, there was one day I was hyper for no real reason and I knew that. So, I just tried to breathe through it. Then one had come into the break room talking smack about someone I didn’t know. I became livid. In my mind, I had torn up the break room and beat that person within an inch of their life. That feeling scared me. I thought I should have taken one of my meds to maybe help fix that, but it really hit home for me . 

 It had been a week since I was home my husband had been goofing off with the kids like normal. He wasn’t doing anything wrong at all. He was being himself. The only thing I wanted to do was hurt him in any way I could. I knew that I had to walk away from him. I do remember telling him what was going on and how I needed to sit on my hands because I didn’t trust myself.  That’s when he and I felt it was time for me to get off most of my meds.

 It was a hard road to run but it turned out for the best because I would have really done some serious damage. I ended up taking just one seizure medication and ended up eating better and that helped a bunch.