Seizure

Today started out as so many other days have started here in the EMU.  We were promptly woken up at 8:00am by a nurse wanting to take vitals on Tina.  We got up, Tina ordered breakfast, and I took a shower.  Tina has been fighting discouragement on and off over the last couple of days, wondering if she's made the right decision to come back down here, but this morning she was determined to have a good day even if she had no seizures.  After breakfast we played a rousing game of Skipbo (I kicked her butt), and then Tina decided that she would get caught up on e-mail and Facebook messages.

Tina hasn't had much of an appetite but has felt light headed on and off again, so she thought that maybe she'd better get something to eat.  She ordered lunch and while we were waiting for that to come up, we decided to Skype with my parents for a few minutes and just check in on things at the home front.

Tina's food arrived while we were talking to my folks and Tina progressively felt more and more light headed, so we got off with my parents and figured that she'd better eat something.  It wasn't a couple minutes later, before she even started eating that she felt a seizure coming on.  I won't go into the details but the seizure did end up progressing into a grand mal.

We are very grateful today that first Tina had a seizure and second that it didn't require any drugs to bring her out of it.  The bad thing about giving her drugs to bring her out of a seizure is that it's pretty much guaranteed that after the drugs she won't have a seizure for at least another 48 hours or longer.

I love to watch the staff work here when Tina goes into a seizure.  The nurse that was on today was one that we grew to appreciate very much the first time we were here are she has as much experience with seizures as anyone on the unit.  It never ceases to amaze me how calm, and relaxed these people are when someone is having a seizure.  Watching a seizure can be such a traumatic thing, but once you get it in your head that people don't die of seizures and that they eventually come out of it, it definitely keeps things in perspective.  There was a nursing student who was assisting today and Tina's was the first seizure she has ever seen.  When it was over she was very freaked out.  Tina is always very tired and wiped out after her seizures, and she's sleeping now.

From here it would be good for Tina to have several more seizures just so that they have multiple sets of data to compare.  That way they can make sure that the seizures are all coming from the same location.  However, Tina's history is one that when she has one seizure they tend to come in rapid succession each one a bit more difficult.  Please pray for strength for Tina, for wisdom so that the doctors can accurately analyze the data, and insight for the nursing staff to accurately discern how best to help Tina through these seizures.

We praise our God and King who rules over all things.  Who is sovereign over seizures and brains and who lovingly provides everything that we stand in need of, and knows better than we do exactly what that might be.