Yvonne’s Story

Hey my name is Yvonne. My story is I just recently had a grand mal seizure on Sept 3 2021. It came out of nowhere not 30 minutes I think after I came home from work. I was putting a container in the refrigerator and the next thing I knew I was lying on my right side on the floor. My husband helped me sit up on the floor. I said “what am I doing on the floor?”. He was sitting at the kitchen table when it happened. He was looking at his phone when he heard me make a grunting noise and heard me hit the floor. He saw me on my back having a seizure. It scared him so bad. I did figure out that I was standing, stiffened up, fell over on my left side of my body, and then rolled on to my back. I had a bump on my head and bruises on that side of my head behind my ear going down. I had a bruises on my left shoulder, arm, and hand with some scratches too. My husband panicked trying to call 911. He said I was stiff as board my arms straight up in the air and my eyes open staring up to the ceiling shaking bad. He did know from an old job of his to roll me on my side. He saw someone at his old job have a seizure there and saw what someone did for that person. He just didn’t know to put something under my head. I think he may have thought at first I was having a stroke maybe. I couldn’t believe it happened. I was so scared and dumbfounded at that.

I had to I think they were absence seizures as a child but was told it was something I would grow out of and it may have been due to child birth because of low oxygen. I was maybe 6yrs old and 7,8, or 9 when I had the second one. I was on medication after the second one dilantin I had to take. It slowed me down so bad it was as if I had no brain because I couldn’t function hardly at all. The dose was cut down and I slowly came back but I had to relearn almost everything in school. After a few years my mom took me off the medication. I have went for forty some years without any problems until my recent seizure. It was different from the 2 as a child. I was taken to the hospital. I had an MRI and a CT scan done. I was told I had 2 small bright white spots on my right frontal lobe. They said it looked like calcifications. I was told I had to take Keppra. I didn’t like that at all.

I saw a neurologist a couple of months later and he said it is a brain malformation from when I was forming inside of my mom. He said I would have to take it for the rest of my life now. I didn’t like or understand that. He said I was at high risk of having another seizure. I don’t know all the reasons why that is. I am 53 now. I was 52 then. My 53rd birthday was November 25 on Thanksgiving day 2021. I have to get a wake sleep EEG in Jan 2022 and an ambulatory 24 hour EEG in Jan 2022 too. I have so many questions about what’s going on with me. The Neurologist made feel like he may not to answer all my questions and made feel like some things he told me like I should know what it means and I don’t. This is my first seizure as an adult. I never knew much about seizures, the kinds of seizures, and nothing about epilepsy. I only thought that people with that condition had seizures all the time or on some kind of constant basis. I don’t have them like that. So far I have had only 3 my whole life time. I want more answers and someone who can listen to me and give me advice about anything and everything. I have type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and now back issues I need to see a doctor for to. Thanks for letting me share my story. I could go on but it’s just so much.