Sunday, May 3, 2009

on seizures

I knew this from my own reading and coursework, but in case you didn't know, seizures (often associated with brain tumors) aren't necessarily about falling to the ground and jerking around uncontrollably.* I remember one of my psych professors saying that, for some folks, a seizure might be as simple as standing perfectly still and staring off into space for a time. This article, by a person diagnosed with a brain tumor, offers a description of a seizure from the victim's point of view. While I didn't ask the doctors about this, it's entirely possible that what I witnessed on the morning of April 16, the day Mom's symptoms appeared in full force, might qualify as a species of seizure.

UPDATE: This entry was inspired by a bit of research that led me to this blog post on a site called Kevin MD.





*As someone who has watched a lot of "House" since coming home from Korea, I've noticed that, when patients have seizures on the show, they tend to be of the stereotypical variety. Along with seizures, other recurrent visual tropes on "House" include: vomiting blood, drilling into someone's skull, and fouling the bed.


_

No comments: