Don't Back Down

After the my seventh seizure, I was pretty sure I was going to have to have another MRI. As luck would have it, I didn't. Just an ambulatory EEG. Despite the name, an ambulance is not involved - this is a process where you get a whole bunch of wires glued to your head, then run down to a control box that you get to carry around for a while. In my case, about eighteen hours. Supposedly this tells them something about what's happening inside. We'll have to wait and see about that part of it.

The last time that I had one of these procedures done, I had my head wrapped so tightly I thought I'd pass out. I swear that the person doing the wrapping was a sadist. Maybe the Marquis de Sade himself. But this time, there was no wrapping a tall - just a plethora of wires glued onto my noggin. So I left the office with a bunch of wires trailing down my back, wrapped in gauze. It's like an odd sort of pony tail, I guess. Actually it wasn't too bad, except for the looks I got on the way out of the building and on the ride home.

The bad part is that I then had to deal with all those wires. It wasn't bad for a while - I just had to keep track of when I ate (apparently chewing is a problem, which means I can't have any gum while the test is going on), and then when I took medicine and went to bed and got up. I didn't ask, and it didn't mention, if there should be any notes about sex. I guess that you're so trauamtized about the wires coming out of the head and the bizarre pony tail, that you won't think about it. Maybe they're right. Maybe I should have tried it out, just to see what sort of results it recorded.

If you should happen to have a seizure or other abnormal activity, you are supposed to push the button on the control box, and record it in the journal. Maybe that's the answer.

Anyway, we watched a little television and went to bed. Then I had to figure out how to sleep with that thing. It wasn't good. Since they make you test it out with your eyes closed and eyes open, I actually thought that I should probably record when I woke up through the night (several times), but I didn't. Too much work to get out of bed with that package I was hauling around. Then one of the electrodes - the one recording my heartbeat - came off. Maybe they'll think I am dead or a zombie or something.

So this morning I went in and had all of the electrodes removed, told them about the problems, and everything was fine (I don't get the readout until next week sometime). But I had to deal with the remnants of the glue in my hair. Though the scrubbed my head with some sort of paint thinner (at least that's what it smelled like) and I used some industrial strength dandruff shampoo afterwards, I'm still picking out the little white pieces. It's pretty annoying. But at least my head isn't pounding like the last time.