Celebrating One Year Seizure-Free!

I did it!

It’s official. As of last weekend, I have been seizure-free for one year. You have no idea how good it feels. I’m going to get my license back! So I can drive my non-existent car! Yeah!

Quick catch-up: I have had epilepsy since I was 18 and randomly started having seizures. Since then, I have had a dozen or so major seizures in fun situations such as at work, in a movie theatre, and at a video game store. I’ve even disrupted family events like Easter dinner. But my family and friends are cool and they understand. The people in the movie theatre? Not so much. But that’s another story for another day.

Let me rewind 366 days and tell you the story of my most recent (hopefully last?) seizure.

D (then-boyfriend, now-fiance) and I were out shopping after work. He wanted to ’shoot the shit’ with some old co-workers of his at Future Shop, where he used to install sound systems into cars. He’s techy like that – I’m never going to have to program a piece of electronics again for the rest of my life. Which actually kind of sucks because I like figuring that stuff out. Oh well! Anyway, I wanted to hit up a shoe store or two and had a secret plan – to buy him a birthday gift at EB Games. We had just gotten a Wii and D wanted to download some old-school games. You can buy Wii points cards, so I was planning on getting one for him. Sadly, the store was sold out of points cards. I was the only person in the store besides the sales guys, so decided to try out a new game without risking the potential embarrassment of totally sucking. I started to play the new snowboarding game for Wii.

I wasn’t playing too badly until my head started buzzing…I was going into a seizure. It’s hard to explain how you know you’re going into a seizure – the best example I can give you is static. There’s a lot of static in your brain and you get tunnel vision. You start to lose focus. I tried to fight it off by stepping back and walking away from the game. I walked towards the counter to give back the Wii-mote, set it on the counter, and…blacked out.

I have to take a moment here to say that while at this store, I received possibly the best customer service you could ever ask for. The guys at EB Games knew exactly what to do. That, or the person they spoke to when they called 911 was a very good coach. When I regained conciousness, they had shifted me into the rescue position and had brought a chair over for me to sit in when I was ready. It was obvious that they were pretty freaked out (they kept their distance from me), but at the same time I was really embarrassed, so it all worked out.

The ambulance arrived a short while later. The EMS technicians (Emergency Medical Services – also, coincidentally, my future initials) wheeled in a stretcher and the big show started. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt as though the whole world was staring at you? That was me. I was conscious and able to walk so I insisted on walking out of the store myself. They sat me down in the back of the ambulance and started taking their notes. Eventually, they decided that I had better go to Emerg (ugh!) and started tucking me into the stretcher.

Then my phone rang. I had almost forgotten about D, who was completely oblivious to everything that had just gone down around the corner from where he was hanging out with his friends. He rushed over to me, kissed me on the cheek, and met me at the hospital. Have I mentioned how wonderful he is?

Thanks for celebrating with me!  Now, I’m off to make cookies