Woke today in that confused state which precedes a seizure. This condition was at one time difficult for me to distinguish from normal life. Partly because at one time I enjoyed disjointed thoughts which disappeared in mid-thinking, and partly because at one time when these neurological electrical storms would rage inside my brain, it did not much matter to me whether they intensified into a seizure because at one time I could endure a seizure without any lasting effects. But now I tend to dislocate shoulders, and such.
First, sleep flees; no matter how tired I might be, and regardless of how lazy I normally am, I cannot stay in bed when these storms come. It is not that I want to be awake -- as if to greet the bright day, make coffee, and be alive -- oh no, I want more than anything to be asleep again, because just simple consciousness exacerbates the storm. Every brain cell contributes to the propagation of incoherent energy across my brain, stirring my thoughts into a melee of memories, images, words, ideas, questions and disorientations; I have a pot of coffee and a near-empty container of dilantin capsules and it seems to make sense that I should pour one into the other. But is it the coffee into the pill bottle, or do I put the pills into the coffee pot? And why can't I seem to recall anything about how I always must have done this in the past.
Sleep flees because when the normal neurological pathways of thought careen out of control, they tangle with and sever other pathways, sending them out of control thus spreading pockets of anarchy across my brain at the speed of light. This intense random electrical activity sets off alarms in my cerebellum and brain stem causing the release of adrenalin and signalling the higher functioning levels of my brain to wake up and pay attention. And so the cycle goes, until either I have a seizure, or I avoid it somehow.
Today I avoided it by taking the emergency stash of Ativan given to me by my neurologist for such occasions. It calms the panicking brain cells that are increasingly losing connection with other brain cells -- being isolated really upsets a brain cell -- and all the little fighting children and their broken toys are given a time-out nap, and when I wake up a few hours later, things are usually better.
But I am nonetheless annoyed today because, seizure or not, this kinda crap takes a day right out of my life, crumples it up and throws it away.