83 Days.
As of bedtime last night, that's how many consecutive days I have been seizure-free. By bedtime tonight I will, hopefully, be able to add another day to the count.
I had 4 seizures last year, in 2011. I also had 4 seizures in 2010. Going back even previous years, I've had even more seizures.
In fact, except for the period from September 2007 - October 2008, I have had at least one grand mal seizure each year since 1985 (and sometimes many more than one). Man, those 13 months of being seizure-free were awesome! In fact, I was beginning to think that I was in the clear, seizure-wise.
What brought about that seizure in the 10th month of '08?
Great question; glad you asked!
Oddly enough, someone smashed one of my fingers in the hinges of a rebounder that I was giving to her. To be fair to her, I know she didn't do it intentionally. To be fair to me, I had tried to tell her to stop what she was doing at the moment to let me get my hand out of the way; but she was in a "brute force" frame of mind and didn't heed my request. Ouch! In fact, dizzying and piercing headache ouch, with a side of nausea thrown in for good measure (my apologies to any of y'all who are a bit squeamish). A couple of hours later, I had a seizure. Excessive bleeding is a seizure trigger; even internal bleeding as what I had experienced from the finger-smash.
Ah, well . . . life goes on, doesn't it?
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Since 2000, all of the seizures have been grand mal and during my waking hours; prior to that, they had all been nocturnal grand-mal seizures up until 1998, when, for a couple of years, I began having both waking and nocturnal seizures (mostly still nocturnal, though). In fact, the very first grand mal seizure I ever experienced (1988) occurred while I was sleeping. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed!
Prior to 1988, I believe that I had petit mal seizures going back at least a decade. That is a supposition and not a hard fact, though; prior to the first grand mal seizure, I had never even heard of seizures and had never seen a doctor for what I had been experiencing (this was due to my young age and the fact that I didn't share what was going on with dad).
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One year, circa 2004 and for about a six-month time period, I had grand mal seizures every 2 weeks.
Coming back to more current time, I have had 2 seizures in 2012; one in March and one in April.
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It was also in 1988 that I had decided that I needed to take better care of body and started researching healthy ways to lose weight. I mention this in my blog post,
"Let's Eat!" This was prior to the first grand mal seizure; and it was that very seizure that led me to begin research on how to combat seizures via what I fed my body . . . and more specifically, what I
didn't feed my body.
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Throughout all those years and all the various information I had gathered and learned, I had never read anything regarding exercising being way to combat seizures.
On April 2nd of this year, after a year of on again / off again attempts to incorporate consistent exercise into my life, I finally "got it" and started intentionally exercising every day.
On April 19th . . . 18 days into my new lifestyle . . . I had a grand mal seizure. Looking at my notes that I took regarding the previous days' activities, I believe there were several factors involved that brought about this seizure: lack of sleep, inadvertently eating something containing soy and almost 4 hours of exercise in that one day, OK, ok, I'll give y'all that - 4 hours of exercise in one day was probably a bit excessive. But hey! I'm still pretty pleased that I was able to do it. Put
that in your pipe and smoke it.
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I didn't let the seizure deter me, though. After taking the following day off (truth be known, as mandated from Tex), I began my fitness regime again on April 21st.
Sometime during the last couple of months, it occurred to me to research whether or not exercise can help combat seizures.
AND, guess what?! It most certainly can!
It seems like a no-brainer right now; but all those years previous, it never occurred to me . . .
and I never came upon any information suggesting the correlation.
But, yes!!! Regular, daily exercise does, indeed, help keep seizures at bay (such exercise being done in
reasonable amounts and not like some crazed ironwoman who is high from adrenaline and endorphin rushes).
This is awesome, awesome news, y'all!!!
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So, these past 83 days of being seizure-free have been very cherished. It feels good to be able to actively participate in combating seizures; by not only paying attention to what I feed my body, but
also by ensuring that I make consistent daily exercise a part of my life.
I didn't reach my fitness minutes goal for June. My goal was 3,000 minutes; my actual minutes were 2,364. To be honest, I had wondered if 3,000 was too much of a reach; but I went ahead and made that my goal, anyway. But, even though I didn't make my goal, I still got in almost 40 hours of exercises (39.40, to be exact - but whose counting) . . . and I'm happy with that.
My goals for July are to add another 2,500 fitness minutes to my yearly total . . . AND, of course, to complete another month of being seizure-free. So far, I'm on track with both.
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There are some seizure triggers that are simply out of my control; i.e., fluorescent lighting, injuries with excessive bleeding, etc. I can't worry about the what-ifs of those triggers; I can only do my best to avoid them and then make sure I do everything possible to take care of my health . . . and then go out and live life and enjoy it!
Isn't that what each of us should do, anyway . . . take care of our health to the best of our ability and truly live our life? I sure think so.
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Above everything else, I give Praise to Our Lord, Jesus Christ, for HIS Covering and HIS Guidance.
Thanks for reading; y'all be blessed!
Sharmie
