Yet another memoir by the unofficial epilepsy expert, dr. Don, epilepsy expert from experiences past without a degree. My blog username and Facebook fan page are degreeless Dr. Don, because I know more about epilepsy than most EMT, GP, damn psych people, neurologist just by my history with it, 45 dad-blasted years. Epilepsy Memoir, a 45-year unusual epilepsy detour 1-A Detour From the "Normal Life"Gentlemen, Line Up Your Cars, Start Your Engines, Green Flag, Gun Your Engines, Go!Genesis of the epilepsy, the beginning of the Electric Highway and the ups and downs of epilepsy, depression, correctly diagnosed stress anxiety syndrome and correctly diagnosed panic attacks syndrome and misdiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, supposedly all three psyche nonsense are active which is a load of frozen hockey pucksHippocrates Ecumenical, my first neurologist, said "I've seen these many times before. When adolescence ends, your seizures will stop." My seizures will stop when adolescence ends; that was seven or eight years; seven years seemed a lifetime, eight years seemed an eternity. So began the mounting frustration and exasperation. That statement has echoed in my mind during a 40-year prolonged adolescence. The brain is like a car's engine-it controls what we do and where we go and some of us have faulty electrical systems. In adolescence, testosterone shifted my brain into overdrive and flicked the seizure switch that controlled the firing of my spark plugs to the off position-it has remained there for over four decades. At the end of my sixth-grade-year during the hot summer of 1974 my engine overheated and I had two tonic-clonic-known at the time as grand mal-seizures. At the time I experienced ictal (seizure) amnesia. So began a 42-year-journey on Epilepsy's Electric Highway. The fictitiously named Hippocrates Ecumenical died in 2007 of liver cancer. Memories of events prior to that time became vague and uncertain-except for certain notable exceptions. In third grade, my crush on Wendy-a redheaded, emerald-eyed girl-and in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, Sarah-a sapphire-blue-eyed blonde, with perfect teeth who filled my thoughts and dreams.
