My name is Lucas, and I am 15 years old. I was 4 when I had my first seizure. After a dozen neurologists and countless medications, I still had breakthrough seizures. In eighth grade, I went to Spain to see an excellent neurologist. He tested me again (on my second visit) on other medications (all failed) to see if we could get my seizures under control. Unfortunately, the final option to help was brain surgery. My parents and I were terrified. Later on, my mom said she was looking for an excellent neurosurgeon, and there was one that my neurologist knew.
Once we found him, we scheduled a meeting with the neurologist for an SEEG. We flew to Pittsburgh to get my SEEG.
I had 18 bur holes drilled into my skull and 188 leads attached to my brain. When the SEEG procedure was over, they found the location of my epilepsy. It was in my left hippocampus and amygdala. The hippocampus was my memory. I lost about 20% (the other 80% moved to the right side of my brain), and the amygdala was my feelings. A few weeks later, we flew back down to get my second procedure which was a resection. The surgery was about six hours long. When I woke up, I could not recall words. It was scary. I had to retrain my brain. I had depression and anxiety, but I have worked through most of it. After my procedure, I had to get an MRI to ensure everything in my brain was processing correctly. They had an MRI early because I had a lot of pain from the procedure and all the noise, but they had removed enough. They told us everything looked fine. Every morning I had to take physical therapy to relearn how to walk. I would walk for about three minutes, lay in bed, and pass out. I was in the hospital for about three days and had to stay in Pennsylvania for an extra week to get my stitches removed. Once I got them removed, I flew back down to Florida. It was very hard for my parents because I was very emotional.
A few months later, when I was in Charlevoix, Michigan, I had three grand mal seizures in less than an hour. Those were the first three gran mals I’ve ever had, and I had to go to a hospital. A few hours later, we drove back to our house. About a month later, I had another grand mal, and we were so worried we flew back to Pittsburg to get an EEG. The EEG looked fine – I had no spikes, but we could tell from my blood draw that my medicine was off because one of my neurologists upped one and lowered one too fast. Now I am getting off my medications, slowly and carefully. I am almost off one of them, and no problems have occurred. I am a sophomore in high school and have two jobs in Michigan and one in Florida.
