After the seizure ceased I looked for normal breathing, phoned the provider, and performed a neuro check. I felt like there would be more steps for some reason but I realized his room was prepared with seizure precautions. During the complex stimulation I felt a little more prepared but I missed a couple step. After…
Throughout my life, I have had to overcome some of the hardest obstacles. I was diagnosed with Common Variable Immunodeficiency, a disease causing me to have an extremely low immune system that forced me to grow up constantly sick…
At seventeen years old I had my first introduction to the United States Healthcare system. In November of 2004 I had three weeks left on my mother’s health insurance, I was approaching my last semester of high school and was having frequent unexplained fainting spells. With a month left on my insurance I quickly went through rigorous testing to determine the cause, leaving me feeling like a test subject in a lab. In the beginning of 2005 I was diagnosed with epilepsy. Specifically, I had complex partial seizures, I was handed five different prescriptions and sent on my way.…
The frontal lobe is often the area of the brain that is damaged in motor vehicle accidents as well as sports accidents as it is placed in the front of the skull, an area that could be damaged due to its location. For example, in a motor vehicle accident if the head were to hit the windshield it would be the frontal lobe that hit first. The frontal lobe is responsible for multiple functions of the body such as emotions, motor capabilities and cognitive impairments meaning that if it is injured those areas of a person will be affected. First, the emotions or neurobehavior of a person may be affected in ways such as being over- emotional, having a flat affect (emotionless), mood swings and alexithymia, which is the inability to understand the emotions in others. For example if a person had alexithymia they would not be able to tell that when a person was smiling that they were happy.…
Epilepsy and the Oral Cavity Epilepsy is a central nervous system disorder (neurological disorder) in which nerve cell activity in the brain becomes disrupted, causing seizures or periods of unusual behavior, sensations and sometimes loss of consciousness (MayoClinic). Diagnosis of epilepsy is not an easy task as it comes in many forms and can range anywhere from a blank stare to full body convulsions, but once it is diagnosed, epilepsy can often be treated with medication and the patient can live a normal life. One thing that must be noted is that these medications can have side effects that are detrimental to the oral cavity.…
A anesthesiologist with a major hospital contacts one of the doctors at the same hospital and explains to him he has been having brief laps of time, this was concluded with a diagnoses of a form of epilepsy. Unfortunately this has gone unrecognized thought out his residency, His condition is completely treatable, but has left the second doctor feeling unsure of his ethics on the doctors patient relationship or to let the hospital now his condition. The issue in this case is that the condition of being an epileptic can harm patients and the other doctor has an obligation under his oath no matter the doctor-patient confidentiality to make the hospital aware of this situation. There is a huge risk that this kind of could possible scare other…
At that time I thought I was going to lose my mom because I had no idea it was a seizure. Not even my dad knew what was going on. Through this whole time I was balling my eyes out while I was watching my mom as my dad tried to comfort her. About three minutes passed before the red and blue lights flashed outside. She started to faze out of her seizure slowly and once the paramedics entered the house she finally said her first word.…
All the people I know who do not have to manage obstacles on a regular basis are dead. So, if you are dealing with obstacles in your life, consider yourself lucky because that just confirms that you are still alive. I cannot think of a time when I felt more alive than my thirteen week vacation on Parris Island. For those that do not know, Parris Island is a small island on the coast of South Carolina where the government makes United States Marines. I said “vacation”, but this thirteen weeks was anything…
Some challenges I’ve had to overcome start with me needing to get my life fixed. I used to be the student in high school that didn’t care about how they looked or what grades they got. I had no self-confidence in who I was and I had no aspirations on what I wanted to do with my life. Once high school was over life hit me and I needed to stop being the person I was because it was getting me nowhere in life. Now that I changed my attitude and my lifestyle I now get good grades and I finally feel that I have a clear future for…
Two years ago, on a Thursday afternoon, I was waitressing on our busiest days at work. I was doing fine but then suddenly, I started to feel ill. I had no idea why I felt ill, but I tried not to acknowledge it since it was rush hour. A few minutes later, I had a seizure in the dining area.…
I also couldn't focus. It affected my schooling more than I could have ever imagined. My family worked hard, from the very beginning, to find doctors that could help me, but no one seemed to know what was wrong. Doctors just gave us "possibilities," not answers. It wasn't enough.…
Fear and anxiety set in and I began to feel knots in my stomach, then the words I want to say get jumbled and I don’t “look before I leap.” Sometimes, when I was experiencing the Flat Brain Syndrome, I tend to blurt out my feelings of anger (p.25). The Flat-Brain Syndrome are symptoms that I am experiencing at the time when my systems go haywire. For example, my stomach expands like a balloon filled with an overload of mixed emotions, such as anger, fear, anxiety and fear of rejection. The upward expansion flattens my brain against the top of my skull, and my ability to think clearly is not functioning well (p.25).…
The biggest struggle I’ve had to overcome is a personal one. No, I did not have to raise myself out of poverty or stand up to any injustice being committed but for me at least it was a struggle. When I was little I had a terrible stutter/speech impediment or whatever you want to call it. Think of the guy from The Kings Speech but less Royal and without an academy award. I would speak too fast, with a stream of partial words and syllables pouring out of my mouth occasionally tripping up and stopping and stuttering mid-sentence.…
Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is a neurological disorder that can be inherited and often develops during puberty(). The symptoms of this disorder are comprised of several different seizures that may be apparent in other types of epilepsy(). A common seizure that occurs in JME patients is myoclonic seizures (MYO)(). They are described as brief and sporadic spasms of a muscle or cluster of muscles that normally occurs while falling asleep, early in the day() or whenever the patient is sleep deprived().…
Two years ago I had to go through an experience that was not only scary but very hard. After hundreds of X-rays and 2 MRI’s the doctors started to notice that something was not right about my brain. After looking over all the xrays and mris they figured out that my brain was too big for my skull. This would have to be fixed with brain surgery and this specific thing is called chiari malformation surgery. Hearing that you will have to be going through such an intense surgery at age 13 was definitely a moment in my life I wont be able to forget.…