Intro: My Life as an Epileptic Teenager

I am new to Blogger, so for my first blog I will be writing a bit about myself. My name is Amanda, but you can call me Mandy. I am 17 years old and I live in San Antonio, Texas. One of the main issues in my life today would be my life struggle with Epilepsy. I do as much as I can to alert others about Epilepsy and what it is. There are many misconceptions about this condition or disease. I have struggled with Epilepsy for the past (almost) 5 years, but I am refusing to let Epilepsy rule my life... which can be a bad thing sometimes. For instance, when I decide "Heck with it, I'm going to the amusement park today even though I'm having seizure symptoms!". Like I said, I'm always trying to live life as a normal teenager.

I am a confusing case, because my doctors have never been able to pin-point the exact area on my brain that caused this whole mess. I had my first seizure in 7th grade; I was in the back of a friend's car on our way to her basketball game. We'll just call my friend Suzy... Anyway, Suzy and her father basically knocked on our door at home, and left me there. Not waiting to see if I was okay. Just in a rush to get to some stupid YMCA game. How sweet? I know. After that day, many other problems arose. Hormonal issues, migraines (some of the worst you could ever imagine), nausea spells, etc. I would love to tell you all of my problems but that would take up a whole screen :). Eventually I started having random seizures. At first I was experiencing colorful "auras". "These are only migranes," as described by one of my most unhelpful neurologists, "nothing to worry about". We weren't getting the answers we were looking for but me and my family grasped to any information on my health that we could. He put me on a great big cocktail of medications, but nothing worked. Numerous MRI's and other tests were done but nothing showed up except for a red herring... A small pituitary tumor that turned out to be something completely harmless. We were handed to doctor after doctor, even out of city. Each one, washing their hands of me and passing me on. I lost weight, gained weight, developed rashes and blisters. Each medication ahd it's own horrible side effects. Some of the worst were hallucinations, anxiety attacks and extreme depression phases. I began to have larger seizures. They started with staring, licking of the lips, and soon after anyone noticed that I would scream and go unconscious, convulsing on the bathroom or livingroom floor. By this time it was halfway through my 8th grade year. I had to become a homebound student because the seizures became so frequent. Still to this very day I am homebound, and it is already my 11th year in high scool. I have tried to return as a full-day student but I am really just too sick. The medication has completely ruined my immune system making it very easy to catch whatever colds that are going around. This is too much on top of being an Epileptic teenager. Finally I was passed on to Dr. Tomasovic who gave us a dead on explanation. It was indeed epilepsy... As if we didn't already think this. He started to help by putting me on Trileptal. I was seizure free for almost 3 months, but when the seizures came back, my doctor became frustrated because no matter how many MRI's I took, he could not find the cause. He referred me to my current (and hopefully last) Epileptologist/Neurologist, Dr. Szabo, who opened great doors for me. I no longer had to sit on the examination table trying hard to explain my symptoms without sounding like a complete idiot. He had seen it all before and this was reassuring. We have still have frustrations with the medications, and many hospital visits, but he has always taken great care of me. I thank God for this everyday! He has recently chose to give me the options for two different surgeries. One would be invasive brain surgery (which I have turned down). The other being VNS surgery. I will tell you right now that my seizures are less frequent and smaller, but my big issue is that the side effects of my medications are unbearable and jeopardizing my health. I have gained a significant amount of weight, my blood pressure gets high, and I have been experiencing bad anxiety attacks and depression. With that being said, I obviously agreed to VNS Therapy, and I had the VNS implanted last Wednesday, on the 5th of May. To read more about my recovery check out my next blog!!! I will be posting as much as possible about this new experience, and hopefully my information will be significant to someone out there! You are not alone!