More Seizures

As I promised yesterday, Tina's first seizure was only the beginning. After we watched Denver get trounced by New England, I told Tina that I needed to get some sleep because I anticipated a long and eventful night and she didn't disappoint.


Several hours after we went to bed, about 1:00am, I was woken up by nurses racing in, lights being flipped on, and Tina's seizure alarm going off. (Each patient in the EMU has a button that they can push when they feel a seizure beginning and it puts out an audible alarm on the entire unit.) Trust me, this is not a fun way to wake up. I'm not sure how long the seizure had been going on prior to the nurses coming in but it was a very short period of time before she went into another grand mal. This pattern is pretty typical. In all, I think there has only been one time when Tina was off her anti-seizure medication when she didn't eventually have a grand mal seizure after her simple partial seizures.

I sat up for an hour reading until she came around. She hadn't realized that she had had a grand mal again, she thought it had only been another simple partial. She was feeling better so about 2ish I got back into bed and tried to come off my adrenalin rush. About the time I think I fell asleep again, 2:45 or so, I woke up again to nurses coming in, lights going on, and Tina's alarm sounding. This time her partial seizure lasted quite a while and again it ended in a grand mal. Unfortunately, this seizure lasted a very long time by any standard. She eventually came out of it naturally, but the Dr. ordered that she be given a dose of Ativan, and they're going to start her back up on her anti-seizure meds yet tonight... I mean this morning. For now they have three seizures to analyze, and they probably feel that with the seizures getting more frequent and longer, the data they have is enough for now. This means she'll probably be very tired tomorrow, and it should be a very quiet day for her.

With tomorrow being Sunday I would be surprised if they gave us much detailed information as far as what they've learned from the data and the next step. That will probably happen on Monday. In the mean time Tina's seizures are probably done... for now.

Although we are excited about Tina's seizures, and certainly see it as an answer to prayer, I have to admit that I am a bit guarded at this point. Our last trip to Cleveland started this same way, with plenty of seizures to begin with, but instead of doing the surgery to remove her seizure focus they did surgery to move electrodes around and in the end her seizures stopped and we went home before they could remove her seizure focus.

I don't say that in a negative way at all - for those who know me well you know that I am a hopeless optimist. I can find the "silver lining" in just about anything. So I'm not guarded because I’m thinking the worse, but because I don't like putting God in a box. We all want things to go a certain way. We think that if we pray enough then God will answer our prayers. Tina will come to Cleveland, she'll have 3 seizures in the first 48 hours, they'll analyze the data, do the surgery, she'll be seizure free, and home before she's missed. Don't get me wrong, I believe that God can do this, and it is exactly what I'm praying for, but I also believe what Paul said in Romans 11:33.

"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!"

Make no mistake, if I could choose my own path it would be the one I described above, but that doesn't mean that's God's path. In fact, if I read the passage right, it says that often God's path is not one that we are able to perceive or the one we’d choose - it's beyond tracing out. God's path is not our path. Does that make God unloving, or unjust? Not at all. You see God answers all our prayers with one of three answers. Yes, no, or later. Just like any loving father would do with his kids. Sometimes I say yes, sometimes I say no, and sometimes I say yes but not right now - and the evidence of my being a loving father isn't that I always say yes, it's that whatever I say, whether it's yes or no, it has the best interests of my son at heart.

If Noah came to me and asked if he could go to a friend’s house on a Friday night, I almost always would say yes - assuming we didn't already have something planned and we know his friend. If Noah came to me and asked if he could repel off the second story roof of the house using a piece of rope he found at school, I'm going to say no. If Noah came to me and asked for a cell phone I’m going to say No, not now, later. Am I ok with Noah having a cell phone? Yes, just not now. My point is this, how I answer my son’s request is not an indication of whether or not I love him, even though when I say no to repelling from the second story he may think I’m being unloving. You see God’s paths are not our paths. We may perceive that God’s answer to our request is unloving, but it’s not. It never is. God answers us just as a loving father would. In his infinite wisdom he hears our request and knows what the most loving thing is. Sometimes it’s yes, sometimes it’s no, and sometimes it’s later.

I pray that God will listen to my request (and yours) and he will say yes, but I also recognize that God’s path is untraceable and I don’t presume that I know what is best for Tina, so if God says no or if he says later, I trust that he loves Tina more than me and he is doing exactly what any loving Father would do – loving her.