WHEN GRAND MAL SEIZURES ATTACK

               On midnight of Monday, December 14th into Tuesday, the 15th was a night like no other when my Grand Mal seizures had attacked me without one break at all; only increasing in power. The Power to Kill!

                That night, all night long actually I had Grand Mal seizures in my sleep. An ongoing nightmare from hell and at 3am that night I jumped out of bed and Michelle knew right away that something was wrong as this was something that I never, ever do. She jumped out of bed as I walked to the bathroom like a zombie, and back in fine. At 7am though when Michelle woke me up as usual to get ready,  I could tell that something was not right! I tried to fight the seizures off as usual, but this day was not a usual one!

                As I walked over to the bathroom towards the sink getting ready just the same as every morning, I fell back onto the leather chair with arms for myself to keep me safe from incidents like this. I was out falling back onto the chair, Michelle helped me off as I was sliding already and laid me down on my side. Laying there for 5 minutes unable to rise Michelle quickly called my parents over. I was spitting out blood from my mouth from my bitten tongue, but not much, not yet anyway! My parents arrived, helped me up and I told them that I did not want to go back into the bedroom because I’m afraid that this time I may not wake up. I sat on the couch and thought that I was fine, for the moment. Michelle called work and said she would be working from home because she knew that this was going to be an awkward day, and was so right!

        A few minutes later another attack occurred, just the same and they called for me an ambulance as I lay there on the floor. The ambulance arrived and got me down and into the truck without any further problems, yet! Michelle and I had to persuade them into not taking me to the local hospital because we had experienced this in 2012 that they had no experience whatsoever with Epilepsy there and finally to NYU we went. Nothing happened to me on the way there thankfully because I can’t even imagine what would or could have happened. Into the ER we went and I waited there on a stretcher in the hall way and then into an oxygen sealed room in the ER when Michelle’s sister Nicole and my new sister in-law, Despina arrived. I told Michelle to go get them both from the waiting room and bring them in. I was told the next day that they had stayed the entire time that I was in misery and I really appreciated it more than they will ever know. I love them both so much!

        They escorted the four of us up to the 12th floor which is the last that I remember of them, or anybody. Including myself. I was escorted into a room, rolled off of the ER bed and onto the hospital room bed and this is when I needed to be filled in of everything that happened to me for the next 5 hours. What happened next - let’s just say I would have been shot dead or burned at the stake 100 years ago for sure. You know the saying ‘There’s a Devil living inside of you’. Well that day, the Devil came out! And by far it was THE MOST HORRIBLE DAY IN MY LIFE! A day in which I wish and pray will Never Ever Happen Again!

        For 5 hours or so the doctors, nurses and even the hospitals bodyguards were called in to try to keep me and my Grand Mal seizures under control. Well, at least they tried because they lost. My Grand Mals kept my body, not me, jumping up and smashing myself back down again onto the bed. No one was able to hold me down long enough to stick a needle in my arm, no one. Not my brother Michael or my father even who tried to give in a shot. I remember them trying to tell me to stop, slow down, stay down and I looked at the bed, side to side and the end and noticed every nurse and doctor, my own neurologist and the foot of my bed with the spookiest look I had ever seen. That time and that time only had my retarded brain not functioning well given me any memory, not that I would have wanted to remember, but my body was feeling the pain though. During this time as well my tongue had been chewed on side to side but luckily was still attached and not bitten off which can certainly happen.       

        After all of the fighting, punching and kicking with everyone trying to help, I woke up the next morning and I was confused of course. I felt like I had been shot in the head 25,000 times with bullets from every direction. I looked down on my left hand which had a needle in it and an IV. I had one on my left arm I remember, but I yanked the damn thing out, I was told. No surprise there, have done it before but not like this. I was looking around at my body, noticed some bruises on my arms and legs from trying to be held down. Bruised, but not battered. And of course 24 wires connected to my head, an EEG which I felt nothing of them doing it. An hour later Michelle arrived and hugged me tightly, happy to see that I was alive and well. She had thought that I had been lost forever. I was in such pain I remember asking her “How did they get it to stop”, Couldn’t they of just knocked me out over the head or something”. Not joking either with a straight face.

        She goes “How, they couldn’t grab you, you were too fast and strong for them” ‘Your joking with me right, you must be kidding me’ “No joke, it took a long, long time to get you to stop and a lot of medication pumped into you”.

“Well that makes sense if you say so since I’m a bit bruised up here and there and my tongue hurts too, I’m guessing I’ll definitely be here the rest of the week” and I was until that Saturday. ‘Yeah well you chewed on it a bit and they called in for help, but you kept pushing them away and they kept saying that you're too strong for them’.

        That made me giggle a bit and I said “Well lets pray that that never happens again”. Michelle stayed with me the rest of that day and laid in bed with me too, filling me in with more info and talking to the doctors. Told me that Michael ran out of the room angry, devastated as everyone was, and punched the wall saying “Why is this happening”. My family had never seen something like this before. My parents came to visit me that Wednesday too and my father saw me there on the bed, okay and all and laughing saying “They had a hard time holding you down, you kept breaking away from their grip” ‘Okay dad, I never want to be reminded of that day ever again, no matter how crazy it was, let’s just be happy that I’m still here okay’. I had other visits throughout the week and phone calls on a hospital phone I asked for from family and friends. For two weeks I had stayed off of my computer and cell phone still till today.

        I was so frightened that I almost cut my cell phone out forever because I know more than most the problems they cause. Computers as well, but I kept that more under control with being timed on how long I stay on one. Wednesday I was looking at my tongue with Michelle’s phone and we noticed that amazingly it was healing and quickly too. I had no medication for my tongue, if there even is anything for a tongue unless you bit it in half.

       Michelle had brought me a book because she knows me well, but this sweet lady, not a doctor or nurse even, but was more like a nun who worked for the hospital, yet not dressed like one, had said a prayer for me, with me, for my aunt that passed away the day before. I was sad that I missed the wake and funeral from being trapped on a bed in a hospital. The next day, the same woman visited me with a Bible in her arm which I was eyeing, but another patient had asked for it and yet, she offered it to me, but I told her that I couldn’t possibly take it since another patient had asked for it. Even so, she still noticed me eyeing it and said to me that the hospital had plenty of them, so I thanked her gracefully. It seemed though after reading it - the nurses, male and female, started looking at me and asking me as well what my favorite part was of the Gospels - Matthew I told them; my favorite disciple of Christ. It seemed to me that they had been shocked that a patient, a young one, was reading a Bible. Makes everyone smile more. I truly believe that Jesus Christ is with us always I told them and that I am a better man for it.   

        Some things though do happen for a reason, everything in life has a purpose I believe. And Tuesday was no different. Already I am on Onfi, Fycompa and Aptiom. My neurologist put me on Dilantin Wednesday and an Italian neurologist who I had just met for the first time did a study in Rome on a few Epileptics and found that Prozac, although primarily used for depression, which I am not, works well for seizures. Since I have already tried every medication already how could it hurt. So I said yes along with the four others throughout the day, morning to night. Prozac is taken just once in the morning. All three of these meds combined; and I think that the Prozac is the key medication in the large dose of meds every day that I have been on for years. Since starting the Dilantin again as I did when I was young along with the Prozac my falling has slowed. This is no cure because there isn’t one at all, but finding the right doses of meds can keep an Epileptic, like myself Under Control! PROZAC who knew right!

        I always believed that something has to work, something was missing or not found yet to keep my brain waves calm. But this neurologist had an idea, an awesome idea that just possibly a pill for depression which has been around for years could be the key drug for Epilepsy, combined with others.          

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE EPILEPTIC

On Saturday, November 14th after a late brunch in Bayside, we took a 4:28pm LIRR for 20 minutes to Penn Station and went to some places that Michelle wanted to show me like Bryant Park, which during this month and next for Christmas has about 30 to 40 booths, lots of sellers of ornaments mostly for tourists and an ice skating rink with a line of children wrapped around it. There is no Christmas tree yet there or in Rockefeller Center which made it easier to walk around without the over-crowded sidewalks and streets for a tree that is decorated the same every year. We walked around the Park and then to Lord & Taylor’s Christmas window displays under their gold lights which was beautiful.

After that Michelle knew a place that is open all year long, Christmas on 5th which is a very wide, long and Holy store with beautiful ornaments small and large as well as Nativity Scenes I do plan on purchasing, but we were short on time. Directly across the street was my favorite store - Barnes & Noble with a lot of movies and music - and vinyl’s on the second floor. I grabbed some books on the way out and onto St. Patrick’s Cathedral which had just been renovated beautifully all around, Michelle and I lit a few candles, said a few prayers and made some donations on its soon to be completion and then I noticed something on the right side of the church near the back - a Pieta’.

  A replica of Michelangelo’s who is widely regarded as the most famous artist of the Italian Renaissance. Among his works are the "David" and "Pieta" statues and the Sistine Chapel. Most of his work was done there in Rome where he passed away at the age of 88 in 1564. This one shone here though in New York is a little different and far less famous.

I purchased four prayer books in the gift shop and left. It was now 7:30 and we were off to our 8 o’clock dinner reservation at Ted’s Montana Grill, we reserved a booth because Michelle and I noticed from the past that there are only 6 booths and a reservation is necessary which I remembered and told her to call earlier. At 7:45 we were there and the booth was ready for us. After all of that walking I had not one problem from early in the day to Ted Turner’s Montana Grill when I noticed a saying from Ted Turner himself on the wall above us which reads: Do something. Either lead, follow or get out of the way. Funny, but true as well.

And then this happened on our way back home in Penn Station...

A problem which has happened 2 times before at different times and days, both in Penn Station. It was about 9:45pm and we were waiting for a 10:18pm train home that Michelle and I were trying to catch with hopes that this time, since the day had gone so well already walking around town – even though we were tired after leaving the restaurant, but not so much that we couldn’t walk back to walk off the food we had just ate.

We reached the station escalator fine, but as soon as we got on with people all around, I had a drop attack seizure and it seemed like I was up against a wall. More of a dream really; rather a nightmare. As I opened my eyes again finally I found 4 people, 2 couples - Good Samaritans - who had pulled me off of the escalator with my 200 pounds of dead weight which then felt like much more (a body soaked in water so to speak). Michelle could not have done it alone.

A woman had asked my wife, “Is he okay, he looks like he’s falling down” she grabbed her husbands’ arm across the escalator and Michelle told them I was having a seizure. I was then grabbed along by his friend/family member and they pulled off and sat me down on the ground. There were at that time people Michelle and I remember walking on by around me, they would have walked on me not caring if I was dead or not, just kicking me aside.

As I finally woke up I started to speak to them, dazed at what had just happened and yet being in Penn Station it was no surprise, more like a curse destined to happen. As I started to say thank you to them the first woman looking down at me, after Michelle had told them that I was ok, "he’s had a seizure, he’s been Epileptic for about 30yrs", said to me that she has family members with seizures too so they understood my problem, no need to explain. They had also called some cops over to help me up, 6 Officers arrived and they wanted to call an ambulance for me, but I told them to hold on and give me a minute.

As I stood up and took off my now dirty leather jacket I handed it over to Michelle and they had a stunned look on their faces, I recall. They looked me over and saw that I was not hurt and I said thank you anyway but I’ll be fine. Although not 100% and still a bit shaken-up an officer asked us where we were headed and walked us over to the seating area about 300ft away and asked the gentleman at the front-desk about our train time and what track we would be on. Michelle and I sat as the officer pointed and we waited for our train to come.

The two times prior this year, the second was after going to a NY Ranger game in Madisen Square Garden as we leaned against a wall away from everybody else that could get hurt from me I still dropped what I was holding and slid down the wall to my right, Michelle was to my left, as I had gotten up there was one cop there asking us if we wanted any help and we both said no. As I probably looked like a drunken fool, which I was not - I was all scuffed up from the dirty floor from my face to shoes, yet nobody this time cared to stop and lend a hand, just stepped away from me.

Not everybody is as generous all the time but there were a few the time before that when Michelle went to get our tickets home as I stayed standing behind her against the giant center pillars near the ticket booths when I slid off of that too. Michelle saw and ran over to me as well as some other people who stayed around me so that I did not get trampled over by a crowd rushing to a train that had been called until I got myself up again. I remember that those ladies that found me there had themselves or family members with the same issues. In Penn Station when a train is called, if you don’t know it is like – All hell breaks loose for a seat and death would have come of it!       

On the train home now that night I found us two seats opposite from each other, didn’t care as long as we had somewhere to sit and put our bags down.

Michelle and I learned something after that last dreadful fall, to never take the LIRR home again because it seems no matter what time of night it is or what great day we had in the city, it will not end well in Penn. So for that matter we will be taking an UBER Car Service home, which is beginning to replace NY Taxi cabs in the city, which I have no problem with. Something tells me that a $40 car/cab service is safer than injuring myself or others because people like the ones that found me lying on the ground will not always be there!

There will be more bad than good in your life - unfortunately. Just try to stay positive about your life and you just might get through the hell you may be living in, if it hasn’t found you yet!