One night during finals week one of my daughters, after seeing what I had made for dinner, begged me to take her to Baja Fresh. Yes, of course, I was totally insulted but she had worked really hard that week and I thought she did deserve something nice and perhaps something that wasn’t so Minnesota casserole-ish. So I agreed to drive her over to the restaurant but I told her that since I was already in my pajamas (I had had a headache and wanted to lay down) that I was not getting out of the car and that she had to run in and pay/pick it up all by herself. The last thing I remember was her getting back in the car from picking up the food. I then apparently drove to Costco, shopped, and while we were checking out, told my daughter that my head really hurt and then I stumbled. I fell unconscious on top of my 15 year-old who then fell on top of an older gentleman. I then began to have a gran mal seizure right there in Costco, in front of the hot dog pick up line. I bit through my tongue so lots of blood. Costco couldn’t find my pulse so my 15 year-old daughter thought I was dead and the ambulance was called. I have no memory of the entire event. I was referred to two different neurologists. One local and one who only treats seizure patients at UCSF. Part of my challenge is that I’m now getting significantly different messages from both of the doctors and that my safe, happy world has suddenly changed. I have lost all of my freedom, I am having trouble with my short term memory, I can’t drive, and I really don’t know what my future life will be like. It’s scary. Fear takes over more than I would like to admit. Probably the hardest part of this whole experience is that my husband and I have been together for 26 years and our relationship is very strong but for the first time we’ve started fighting – always about little things but we have lost our way of communication. It’s unsettling to me that my health can have such a negative impact on my family and on my relationships.
I have never felt the need to hide what happened to me physically from other people but I do feel that people just can’t understand the complicated emotional side to this. I feel isolated everyday. I feel powerless. I feel inadequate. I feel invisible. The meds make me feel like a stranger. Someone I don’t recognize, don’t understand. Just not me. I think those raw emotions scare people. They are strong emotions. I have found myself pulling in, not wanting to be social because sometimes its hard to pretend everything is alright.
For others going through something similar, I have come to realize that sometimes the people around you won’t understand your journey but that’s ok because it’s not for them. How I handle this will define me and no one else.
I have found that people are interested in knowing what happened to you but their lives move on and they forget. It’s nothing personal just life and its your own transition.
You are not crazy.
