Looking out my window and at the weather app on my phone tells me that it's no longer winter, which is a little hard for me to process since this hospital stay began in early December and the last time I was outside was in February. Lemme tell you: I'm not a fan of everyone … Continue reading It’s Nice Out, and I Hate It
It's a pretty normal Saturday in hospital land. I've eaten many things and drunk many Ketocals. I've socialized a little (something I wasn't doing much of when my postictal psychosis was at its worst) and considered building a new LEGO set. I've had a seizure. My seizure frequency means that I wake up knowing that … Continue reading A Glimmer of Hope for “a Challenging Case of Very Intractable Epileptic Seizures”
I was supposed to travel to Ottawa this weekend to attend an event that I'd been looking forward to for months. While acknowledging that there's basically no chance that you don't see where I'm headed with this, I'll nonetheless take the liberty of allowing myself a dramatic, bold-and-italics-style reveal. No Ottawa for me. I'll admit … Continue reading Not in Ottawa, Obnoxiously Festive
Yes, I mean news news, not news of the personal-and-complainy variety. Yesterday I ran across this article about five-year-old Emma, who's the first patient in Canada to have the most recently released VNS model implanted. When she was seven months old, Emma was diagnosed with the seizure disorder infantile spasms (IS); her parents are hosting an … Continue reading Some Positive VNS News in the News
It was my birthday last Saturday. I'm another year older! (Yay?) Yes, I've acquired some additional signs of my impending old age over these past twelve months. I've also, however, gained some real wisdom. (Yay for real this time.) It's been quite the year. I won't claim not to be the person I was in … Continue reading Another Year Wiser(ish), Very Thankful
In my last post, I promised that the next one would be about ice cream. Since I’m a woman of my word, here are ten paragraphs about ice cream. Count 'em. I began writing this post as I greet each new day: by making a list. Since along with being a woman of my word … Continue reading Some Frozen Treats I’ve Eaten This Summer, Most of Which Were Delicious
On this first day of August, I've been looking back over the last month and realizing that a major part of my doing-my-best-to-shrug-off-all-the-stuff-I-feel-powerless-about-and-thus-resent strategy in July was to repeat a simple phrase to myself, usually, but not always (being the awkward person I am), in my head. I've grown to appreciate the power of these … Continue reading July in Two Words (So What?)
I slowly worked on a post about a then-upcoming solo trip to Victoria and about how much it meant to me and about how significant it was, etc. etc., for over a week but didn't manage to finish it because I kept having health setbacks that made it difficult both to articulate what I wanted … Continue reading Postponed Trip, Surprisingly Positive Attitude
Friday was the first day of summer, the summer solstice, and my husband's birthday. It was one of the first truly warm and sunny days of 2019, my wonderful mother-in-law was visiting, and even though I was/am still slowly emerging from a pretty rotten couple of weeks, the cause(s) of this rottenness likely triggered by … Continue reading It’s Officially Summer, and I’m Not Sure Why I’m Not Dreading the Next Few Months
Though I set myself the (completely arbitrary) goal of writing two blog posts in May, for various reasons, most of them medical, I wasn't able to follow through. It's not as if I forgot or didn't make an effort to get the job done; it's just that every time I sat down to force myself … Continue reading Redefining Productivity (Again)
De Morbo Sacro: Life and/with Epilepsy 