My Schedule For the 30th of February

People are generally lovely, kind, understanding. But even in kindness, people can drive you batshit insane.

For five years, from '06-'11, I was delighted to be seizure-free... if I had to schedule it... timing is everything, or so I'm told, I suppose I'd go for the 30th of February. If by some bizarre quirk of fate the Gregorian calendar is revised, like the Julian calendar it replaced, and we are given a 30th day in February, I am hopelessly screwed! :-)

I have two types... one is the tonic-clonic... I like to call this the cinematic variety... it was known as grand mal at one point. First the body stiffens, then, it relaxes...and whammo. I like to describe a seizure as a disrupted telephone line or as a computer shutting down. In this case,  your call to  Aunt Gertie in Tennessee doesn't go through. No nice conversation... instead, the signal is messed up and the messages don't get down the wire.

The second example is the brain, the CPU of your body. Sometimes, it has to shut itself down and reload. After this, I am generally exhausted and left with large blank parts in my memory, or with a few rather nightmarish-but-blurry images. I also tend to walk and talk like I've been on a 3 day bender. And I'll be really thirsty. I can tell ya, it hurts. Like hell. The muscles really do need some help afterwards. May be warned by headache, but since I also get migraines without activity, this is not always the case. But exhaustion and irritability will usually start just before hand. This one freaks me out, because I'll occasionally, just as I'm waking, think I'm under water while people call my name.

The other type used to be referred to as the "petit-mal"  (I'm a bad French student. "Little Illness.") --- more commonly called a staring spell... some people have these simply due to exhaustion... and I warn people a lot that if I'm otherwise fine, to try to avoid alarming me... I may just be tired! (It's a weird one, but I'll send off clues!) On occasion, I'll drop things... like a soda or water bottle, and I tend to find myself slumping. I'm generally "ok" after, but, if people have attempted to slap me to (please, for God's sake... do NOT slap my cheeks and shout "are you ok"! It's a bit jarring and it's easy to frighten me in this state too.) I have wanted to show them what it's like by giving them a movie bitch-slap,  but not had the requisite strength. "You. Come here. Closer. Closer. Closer. Now. Grab my hand. Now. Slap yourself. Hard." (But I've always chickened out.) I'll be wonky, but not nearly as bad as the first type.

First and foremost, if I feel ready to drop, I listen to myself. No second-guessing! I'll beat this.