Ten years ago today.

Praise the Lord and pass the martinis!

My “Little Grey Cells” and I have come a long way together in this world. Part of me is still a bit sad to be missing some of them, but another part of me is so glad those buggers are gone! Wait! A few of you reading this may be wondering what in Heaven’s name I am talking about. So I guess I should tell you!

Exactly ten years ago today, on this day, at roughly this time, they were wheeling me out of surgery to the PACU unit at Baystate Medical Center. My neurosurgeons, Dr. Paul Kanev and Dr. Oh had successfully removed the part of the left temporal lobe of my brain that had been causing my seizures for twenty-five years. My seizures started when I was just about eight years old. My Aunt Carolyn and cousin Joey were up visiting my family in Bucksport, Maine during a school break. It was a Sunday night; I remember because Joey, my brother and I were watching “The Magical World of Disney”. It was the cartoon that had Mickey, Donald Duck and Goofy riding around in a camper pulled by a car. (Needless to say it has now been thirty-five years and I still cannot bring myself to watch that cartoon again).

I remember sitting there with my brother and my cousin. All of a sudden my stomach did not feel very well. The next thing that I remember is that I was in Eastern Maine Medical Center and I was in the pediatric unit. I don’t remember much from when I was there. I remember seeing my Girl Scout troop outside waving at me with a sign that said “Get Better Soon”, but that is about it. I remember bits and pieces of the doctors playing with my anti-seizure medicines until they found one that worked well for me. I stayed on that medication until I was a freshman in high school, and then was weekend off of it.

I stayed off the tegretol until I was a sophomore in high school. I remember being out at Mr. Paperback with my bestest friend in the world, (yes, Stephi, this is for you!) and all of a sudden the mosquitos in Christmas lights started flying around. At least that is what they looked like. When I woke up in the ER, which by the way was just about across the street from the bookstore, I remember telling my mother that my head hurt. She said, “Well, you took out a bookcase with your head when you went down.” I still love books though.

Anyway, the anti-seizure cocktail got revamped, and I stated seizure free until I had graduated from college. Again, the cocktail got remixed, I couldn’t drive for about six months, but then all went back to normal. Until 1997. I was going to be getting married that fall, and my brain went funky again. This time I chose not to drive at all, so they let me keep my license for ID purposes. After another year or so when the neurons seemed to be firing in the right direction I was able to drive again. During this time my now ex-husband Nick and I adopted three beautiful children, bought a nice, big house to raise them in and life went on. Until the spring of 2005.

We had just bought a mini-van to be able to shuttle the kids around in. Then on our way to Kianni’s school for an out-door picnic I “went funny” while driving there. We were all okay (except for that massive hematoma that I got while having my blood drawn in the ER). So after that episode I had my license removed. Bugger.

I really don’t remember much of 2005 until December of that year. Nick had gotten me tickets to see the off-Broadway production of “Wicked” down in Hartford. We went to see it together. At the end of the first act while Elphaba was singing “Defying Gravity” all I could feel in my head and my heart was “Is she singing this for me?” At the end of that first act I looked at Nick with tears streaming down my face and said “I want the surgery.”

We then started the ball rolling. And he bought me a Yorkie that I named Elphaba.

February of 2006 I went through a five day EEG at BMC. However, they left me on my 4,800 mg of anti-convulsants for that time so my brain relatively behaved itself. In April of that year I went back for another five day EEG, but that Monday morning they took me off all the meds cold-turkey. By that afternoon I was seizing. By Wednesday afternoon I had had seventeen petit and grand-mal seizures. I remember coming out of one of them and hearing my father say “Isn’t this enough?” They put me back on the meds that afternoon and on Friday I went home hurting and exhausted.

June of 2006 I went in for a WADA test. This is when they put half of your brain to sleep to see how the other half works. With my being right-handed, the left side of my brain works the best for memory. They wanted to see if the right side could hold up its end of the bargain. The right side passed with flying colors. The left side failed miserably. Literally, the left part of my brain for memory was jello. In August of that year my neurologist Dr. House (William House, not Gregory House) called to let me know that I was a candidate for the temporal lobectomy. The “committee” approved, and on the 9 January 2007 I walked into BMC with my Dad and Nick, wearing my sweatshirt that said “Defying Gravity” and waited to be called in.

I remember being nervous, scared. I remember when they finally called me in and got me ready to go to the ER. Dr. Kanev came in to see me (every time I saw him all I could think of was Santa Claus) and asked me again if I really wanted to go through with it. With it being my temporal lobe the removal of brain matter could affect my speech. The area causing the seizures was so close to the area that controlled my speech. The last thing I said to Dr. Kanev was “Doctor, I don’t care if I can’t speak again and have to learn sign language. Just make the seizures stop.” I will never forget the look on his face. He said “Okay Dawn, I’ll see you in the Operating room.”

And the rest is history.