Shake, Rattle & Roll

The funk after kind of bogs me down. Especially me for some reason.

And 24 hours straight, nonetheless. The sun rising on Saturday morning, or was it still Friday night? I wasn't sure. Certainly I am tired this Monday morning, tired all weekend actually. I rarely ever stay up late. I'm always the first boy to bed. The first one to leave the bar. The first one to beg Bryce to leave. And he obliges, even though I’m sure he’d like to stay out later with our friends.

I was recording my voice as the sun crested outside my window. There I was, speaking into my desktop microphone, when I recorded a seizure.

It’s not very riveting podcast theatre, otherwise I'd post it. Waking seizures (also known as partial seizures) don’t really have an audio component. This one was silence with occasional smacking of chewed gum or a little moaning and heavy breathing. But there it is, right in the middle of a spoken recollection of a childhood memory. A naughty waking seizure tip toed into my brain, onto my recording. And it was a long one. Usually they come and go quickly. I remember Saturday morning's lingered for what felt like forever. I clutched onto my desk expecting to lose physical control. I never did.

Have I discussed my epilepsy here? Maybe in passing...

It's a condition I'm a little reluctant to write about here. Specifically, I’m not ashamed of it. Far from it. I’m quite fascinated by it. But, this isn’t quite the proper forum. And I need to invest the right words to explore it. I realized during my late night sojourn that there are so many subjects which I need to invest in. There’s just so much on my mind lately.

I used to think my periodic phases of disconnection were some form of gateway to a world beyond this one, a metaphysical bridge. When I was having the most seizures, four, five or six a day, I’d try to inhabit them, attempt to feel out the phantom smells and curious sensations my brain was sending my body. Of course I could never remember the unique sensations following.

Modern medical science has effectively closed that metaphysical bridge. They built a locked gate with a little pill called Trileptal and those discerning waking seizures and the accompanying sensations quickly became a thing of the past.

Good thing too, I guess. While I’ve had numerous (countless) waking seizures, I’ve also experienced five grand mal seizures. Those are the kind where you fall down and shake and pee yourself. And bite people. Sorry Dan. I don’t mean to make light of them. They’re actually quite frightening. My third, in particular, was very bloody and very terrible.

My seizures are triggered from lack of sleep. So pushing my brain over a marathon 24 hours of no slumber isn't exactly the most prudent choice for an epileptic. But I’m so sick of always being the cautious one. The one who gets sleepy because my medicine reacts poorly with alcohol. The one who has to leave. That third seizure, the one that resulted in new teeth, changed something in me. It made me so cautious. It made me worry about everything. Again, I need to stop this post and search for the correct words. These are all wrong, but you’re reading them anyways.

This is something which needs to be explored more properly, but it’s been nagging at me all weekend. So much is nagging me right now, like an incessant alarm clock. That alarm buzzes and you know it's time to finally get your ass up in the morning.

How many years have I hit the snooze bar? Sleep is the prudent choice, but I've slept for far too long.