Facing life-marking events that affect not only you but those around you is not always easy. In fact, I believe they aren't meant to be. This is true for events which you have no control over your own body. I've had around seven or eight grand mal seizures in my life. These seizures have a profound affect on my emotions, outlooks and self perception. These are tonic-clonic seizures which qualify as a life-marking event. To exit the 2013 year with a grand "c'est la vie" I marked the occasion with a full blown tonic-clonic grand mal seizure. Forgive me if that last sentence seemed light-hearted. If I don't keep laughing at myself then what's the point of it all.
If I were alone for this year-end bang I wouldn't have as much a problem with it. However, as the stars would have it I was standing at a church pulpit conducting a meeting. This is the horror which faces me. I care not what happens to me and my health but the affect this condition has on the people around me runs deep with lasting magnitude. What were the people thinking? More importantly, what were all the children thinking? Even more important, what was my family thinking? These are questions asked by those of us who suffer with periods of total control loss over one's own body.
I don't have these seizures all the time. It's interesting, my first encounter with a tonic-clonic seizure occurred during my Army service in 1991. I was outside the tear gas chamber when I went down. I remember standing there waiting to be dismissed and next thing I know I had a brief encounter with conscientiousness on the medivac helicopter. My sergeant looked at me and said, "Son, you had a seizure." Before I fell unconscious again my last feelings were of utter and complete failure. That was all I recollect from that helicopter but that one sentence became emboldened in my soul and formed, in large part, who I am today.
After my medical discharge I did, shortly thereafter, have a couple more grand mals that year. Seizure-free was my dance clear until the end of 1999. At that point I could have killed myself and others as my episode took place around the juncture of Interstates 80 and 29 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. My senses were roused with the sound of a State Trooper knocking on my window in the ditch on the other side of the interstate facing the opposite direction. During rush hour I apparently crossed all east-bound lanes, crossed the median and then all the west-bound lanes. Finally, I wound up in the ditch. Now only ignorance and arrogance would dictate someone to say there is no God. Especially when no other accident, let alone any deaths, were spawned by this medical emergency.
Again, living in fear for several years I enjoyed my lack of seizures until January of 2009. This episode was most grievous thus far because it happened right in front of my impressionable son who didn't know what to do. It is times like this that make a father feel so lost and worthless when his own blood sees him as anything but a protector and provider for his family. For the next few years I began to refer to my epileptic seizures as something that occurs every ten years or so. According to the math this is correct..... until now.
For what purposes do epileptic seizures occur? One of man's grand purposes in life is to learn, continue to learn and always strive to learn more of everything. I have always struggled with my self perception and living with that one sentence on the medivac has placed me in a "boxed in" mode from which there is no reprieve. Instead of loathing over it my life endeavor is to learn from it. Yet, this last episode takes it to a new level.
Obviously not conscious I can only speculate how much I disturbed that meeting just as a sacred ordinance was beginning. To go from returning to my chair from the pulpit to waking up on a gurney in ER with blood on my white shirt was not only a shock but also confusing as heck to the senses. For those questioning the blood it is common during a seizure to repeatedly bite the tongue. Yes, ouch!
Believe it or not I did learn some lessons from this. First, I address a symptom which may interest those who suffer from seizures. I remember from my 2009 and this last episode that prior to the seizure I went through intermittent periods of lethargy. At least that's what I call it. It is like a fluctuating curtain of awareness. For instance at this seizure at the pulpit I remember trying to utter a thought. It was said, sort of, but the concentration on what was said and how it was said fluctuated in and out. So for me and others if we experience a span of time from a few minutes to several hours of "in and out" awareness or concentration it may be a sign to seek help or at least remain in safe activity for a while.
As a final thought I believe we all need to remember that mortality is fragile. These bodies are corruptible and subject to all sorts of ailments. To question your Creator every time an abnormality strikes is futile and will only serve the undoing of your strength and perseverance to endure to the end. Instead, take your fragility AND your Creator and live your life in not only learning but also expanding and extending to others. Teach, share and reach out to others that they may understand. Reach out because your experience and what you have learned IS something that someone out there needs to hear. It is part of the grandeur of the design of God's plan for us. We are obligated to share what we have learned. We are accountable!
If you suffer from epileptic seizures as I do take it not as an opportunity to cut yourself short of opportunity or self worth. Know that you are given this challenge tailored to you so that you may learn and then to edify those around you as well. In whatever ails you it would be wise to accept that we are all ministering angels to one another in compassion and support. Be grateful for what you have.
I guess I wrote this more for my own self benefit than anyone else's. Writing is a good way of working out one's own feelings and emotions. However, if any part of this has served to enlighten your understanding than I am grateful for this. God bless and remember that charity and compassion never faileth!
If I were alone for this year-end bang I wouldn't have as much a problem with it. However, as the stars would have it I was standing at a church pulpit conducting a meeting. This is the horror which faces me. I care not what happens to me and my health but the affect this condition has on the people around me runs deep with lasting magnitude. What were the people thinking? More importantly, what were all the children thinking? Even more important, what was my family thinking? These are questions asked by those of us who suffer with periods of total control loss over one's own body.
I don't have these seizures all the time. It's interesting, my first encounter with a tonic-clonic seizure occurred during my Army service in 1991. I was outside the tear gas chamber when I went down. I remember standing there waiting to be dismissed and next thing I know I had a brief encounter with conscientiousness on the medivac helicopter. My sergeant looked at me and said, "Son, you had a seizure." Before I fell unconscious again my last feelings were of utter and complete failure. That was all I recollect from that helicopter but that one sentence became emboldened in my soul and formed, in large part, who I am today.
After my medical discharge I did, shortly thereafter, have a couple more grand mals that year. Seizure-free was my dance clear until the end of 1999. At that point I could have killed myself and others as my episode took place around the juncture of Interstates 80 and 29 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. My senses were roused with the sound of a State Trooper knocking on my window in the ditch on the other side of the interstate facing the opposite direction. During rush hour I apparently crossed all east-bound lanes, crossed the median and then all the west-bound lanes. Finally, I wound up in the ditch. Now only ignorance and arrogance would dictate someone to say there is no God. Especially when no other accident, let alone any deaths, were spawned by this medical emergency.
Again, living in fear for several years I enjoyed my lack of seizures until January of 2009. This episode was most grievous thus far because it happened right in front of my impressionable son who didn't know what to do. It is times like this that make a father feel so lost and worthless when his own blood sees him as anything but a protector and provider for his family. For the next few years I began to refer to my epileptic seizures as something that occurs every ten years or so. According to the math this is correct..... until now.
For what purposes do epileptic seizures occur? One of man's grand purposes in life is to learn, continue to learn and always strive to learn more of everything. I have always struggled with my self perception and living with that one sentence on the medivac has placed me in a "boxed in" mode from which there is no reprieve. Instead of loathing over it my life endeavor is to learn from it. Yet, this last episode takes it to a new level.
Obviously not conscious I can only speculate how much I disturbed that meeting just as a sacred ordinance was beginning. To go from returning to my chair from the pulpit to waking up on a gurney in ER with blood on my white shirt was not only a shock but also confusing as heck to the senses. For those questioning the blood it is common during a seizure to repeatedly bite the tongue. Yes, ouch!
Believe it or not I did learn some lessons from this. First, I address a symptom which may interest those who suffer from seizures. I remember from my 2009 and this last episode that prior to the seizure I went through intermittent periods of lethargy. At least that's what I call it. It is like a fluctuating curtain of awareness. For instance at this seizure at the pulpit I remember trying to utter a thought. It was said, sort of, but the concentration on what was said and how it was said fluctuated in and out. So for me and others if we experience a span of time from a few minutes to several hours of "in and out" awareness or concentration it may be a sign to seek help or at least remain in safe activity for a while.
As a final thought I believe we all need to remember that mortality is fragile. These bodies are corruptible and subject to all sorts of ailments. To question your Creator every time an abnormality strikes is futile and will only serve the undoing of your strength and perseverance to endure to the end. Instead, take your fragility AND your Creator and live your life in not only learning but also expanding and extending to others. Teach, share and reach out to others that they may understand. Reach out because your experience and what you have learned IS something that someone out there needs to hear. It is part of the grandeur of the design of God's plan for us. We are obligated to share what we have learned. We are accountable!
If you suffer from epileptic seizures as I do take it not as an opportunity to cut yourself short of opportunity or self worth. Know that you are given this challenge tailored to you so that you may learn and then to edify those around you as well. In whatever ails you it would be wise to accept that we are all ministering angels to one another in compassion and support. Be grateful for what you have.
I guess I wrote this more for my own self benefit than anyone else's. Writing is a good way of working out one's own feelings and emotions. However, if any part of this has served to enlighten your understanding than I am grateful for this. God bless and remember that charity and compassion never faileth!
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