Last weekend Bret and I went to Outside Lands in San Francisco (Friday-Sunday). Outside Lands is a series of mini-concerts from like 12pm-10pm in Golden Gate Park. We stayed at a CouchSurfing friend, Dave's apartment in the Mission neighborhood and took the bus to the concerts.
On Sunday (8/12) I woke up dazed and confused with an oxygen mask on my face inside an ambulance where Bret and a paramedic where by my side. "Babe, you had a seizure," Bret told me. As he said these words, I felt as if I had gone back through time. I did recognize Bret and I knew sometime in my past I had had a seizure, but nothing made sense to me at the moment.
In the ambulance I felt so scared and so sad I began to cry. Nothing was hurting, but I was so scared. After having a seizure I feel unsafe, scared and my head hurts tremendously. Bret was holding my hand all through out the ride to St. Luke's, this made me feel safer. I have no recollection of them moving me from the ambulance to the E.R. I just remember already being in the E.R., having some blood drawn and the doctor meeting with me. A little history about me: In the fall of 2000, My sister Lupe found me having a seizure in my room. She was so scared, screamed and my family called 911. I was lying on my bed when I woke up all dazed and confused in my room where there was a fireman asking me questions, like "What is your name, your birthday?" and so forth. They took me to Norwalk Community Hospital and the doctor checked me out. He said I had just passed out and sent me back home. That day I experienced the worst headache of my life and I was the most confused I had ever been. I was 19 years old that the time.
That night after getting home, I slept in my sister's bed thinking that it'd have a second seizure, and I was right. At 5am I woke up in my family's car already on my way to the Los Angeles County + USC hospital E.R. I was treated there and hospitalized for 2 days. I had a series of blood tests, a CAT scan and MRI, all which diagnosed me with epilepsy. My specific case is neurocystercosis, a medical condition where my brain had the remains of a parasite I consumed through eating uncooked pork as a child.
So after being treated at LAC+USC, I was on anti-epileptic medication for 2 1/2 months. The medication made me fall into a huge depression, gave me headaches
all the time and made me grow facial hair and rashes in my body so I decided to stop taking in. I was a 19 year-old, non-compliant girl. A month later, the doctor at LAC+USC told me I no longer needed to take the meds and got me off it (I had not told him I had already stopped taking it). I had not had a seizure for 12 years....until yesterday morning. I have to go see a neurologist and have myself checked out to see what are the chances I get more seizures and if I have to be on medication.The triggers of seizures for people with epilepsy are: alcohol, lack of sleep, caffeine and stress. My life is changing in so many ways. My health is first and this means my lifestyle needs to improve in many ways. Yesterday's seizure is a wake-up call to live my life to the fullest and to live my life in loving kindness. What we do every day matters, and each action we go affects or benefits the body in countless ways. My body is so fragile, so beautiful, and so perfect. It is God's best creation. I will take care of it the way I never have in my almost 31 years of life.
Health, Joy, Peace and Love,
Bea
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