Something wonderful has come to my life and the lives of teh girls and I would like to thank President Obama for making it happen.

Yep…. you read that right… The President is responsible for something absolutely awesome happening to my family.

Before going into detail, I have to say that I am very concerned about posting this. In fact I may decide to trash it before it sees the light of day. Long time readers will understand. I think this story needs to be told, not for us but for the thousands that could take inspiration and courage from the events described below. I only hope that “certain quarters” have a tiny bit of human decency left in their cold, dark souls.

This is about my wife’s seizure disorder.

Mrs. Sinner has had seizure activity ever since I have known her. In her younger days drug therapies were effective and (mostly) free of side effects. The occasional “staring spell” was the only hint of the problem. A decade or 2 ago, the drug she was on for all those years started to be less and less effective. Staring spells came more frequently and some had physical manifestations like lip smacking, hand wringing and babbling. Then she had a breakthrough seizure. Back in the day the doctors called it “Grand Mal Seizure”, but recently we were corrected, its called a “Tonic-Colonic” seizure and her “staring spells” were really auras and the auras with physical components are called “Complex Partial” seizures.

Since the initial breakthrough seizure, I have learned more about seizure disorders and anti-convulsant drugs than any layman should ever know.

We started seeing a new neurologist about 4 years ago. At that time Mrs. Sinner’s seizures were getting worse and worse without much help on the horizon from drug therapies. We always seemed to be in a race with the devil to get to the next, newest drug approval or trial. New drugs worked for awhile only to fail in time, usually in spectacular fashion. She would get a new drug and get moderate to good control of seizure activity (never complete control) for a while. Then some side effects would show up, like memory loss, weight gain, one time even a blood sodium crash that caused fainting. (I have to say that it was quite amusing to hear a doctor say to “eat fries and pile on the salt”, but the fainting was not amusing at all.) The inevitable was getting closer and closer, the day was coming when a drug would fail and there was no new drug to take its place.

Our new neurologist mentioned that there 2 possible surgical therapies that has had good success, Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) and Anterior Temporal Lobectomy. The doctor was careful to tell us that VNS was not a good fit for Mrs. Sinner but a lobectomy was a possibility and we should consider having the preliminary testing done in order to find out if it was an option. At the time we were horrified, I mean BRAIN SURGERY??? Good lord, has it come to this?

Needless to say, we told the doctor that we weren’t interested in having Mrs. Sinner’s brain meet the open air.

Two years ago we hit the end of the drug line. Current drugs were maxed out, were not controlling the seizures and there were no more drugs approved. Desperation led us to have the preliminary testing done. This consisted of checking into the hospital, getting her skull wired up to an EEG 24/7 and taking away her meds. The idea was to capture multiple seizures both on the EEG and on film (a video camera was set up in her room, very creepy btw). A few days later she was released and the results were analyzed. As it turned out, she had cleared the first level of requirements and could get another round of testing to see if she would be a good candidate for the procedure.

That’s very hard. How do you decide if you want elective brain surgery? Do you go forward? Think about it…

Mrs. Sinner decided that it was too much. She couldn’t bring herself to follow up and take the second round of testing. Also, there was a new drug to try so it seemed less urgent. The road was still open, but not taken at this time.

The new drug didn’t last long, about a year. This was less than any other drug, she was back to virtually uncontrolled and the end of the drug line was upon us. It seemed like a good idea to go back to do that next round of testing and we did.

The first test was repeated and she went into the second round immediately after the new results showed the same as the previous ones. The next test was the WADA test, where they “freeze” one side of the brain at a time to see if the speech and other cognitive functions were impaired. If she was aware and responsive when the side of her brain that generated the seizures was “frozen”, she would be a good candidate for the procedure. It was a test to see how she would be after a large-ish chunk of her brain was removed. The result? from one of the doctors:

We were astonished, she was completely unimpaired when the target side was disabled and was completely non-functional when the other side was done. I’ve never seen such a complete case.

Still we resisted. Then came Barry…

When it became clear that “health care reform” was headed our way it was a call to action. This single insight during the Presidential election caused us to completely reconsider our position on the surgery. We called the neurologist’s office and scheduled it. Since this is the USA (Pre-BO), it was scheduled quickly and easily. Our insurance company was never a problem, I guess they figured that someone going in for brain surgery isn’t doing something frivolous unlike when we had blood tests or x-rays. The system works.

We arrived at the hospital the day of the surgery, astonishing that you just walk in off the street and get prepped for brain surgery. Just in case we were thinking of backing out at the last minute, Mrs. Sinner had the worst seizure I have ever seen in the reception area.

A quick MRI, a small amount of hair removed from the site and she was wheeled into the OR. A few hours of pacing and worry later they rang my buzzer (like they do at Applebee’s when your table is ready) and I was escorted to my wife’s side in the recovery room. She was just waking up and her first concern was that she was naked under the blanket. I was relieved at that point because that is exactly how I would expect she would react. She had clearly come through it intact. Four days later she was released and we took the long drive home.

That was last fall. Right in the middle of the election. Either candidate would have made this scene impossible in the near future.

Since that time there has been no, zero, nada seizure activity. Nothing. It took some getting used to because the tiny things that became “normal” just stopped being there. Things like a brief stutter or a twitching cheek. Stuff you never noticed because it was just the way it was, gone. I liken it to 9/11. I was working in Chicago near the airport on 9/11. When we went outside the quiet was disarming. We were so used to the roar of aircraft that it was creepy when the noise stopped. This was something I could get used to, and hope that it doesn’t return like the aircraft noise eventually did.

Her drug dosages are gradually being loweredm she is down to 1 drug (from 3) and has had only positive results. Side effects that were facts of life started going away. Mrs. Sinner says its like a veil being lifted after all these years of anti-convulsant drugs having clouded her thoughts and sapped her energy.

Today she is going to get a driving test and will reclaim her driving privileges for the first time in over 5 years. Another few months and she will no longer be on any seizure meds. Her life and the lives of her family have been immeasurably improved, not to mention my stress levels.

The entire experience was so much less traumatic than we ever imagined. We had visions of a shaved head with a huge horseshoe shaped scar. 6 months of bedrest and some painful readjustment and rehabilitation. In reality, she was “tired” for about 2 weeks after the surgery. She had a nasty looking series of staples in her head, but once removed (2 weeks later) the scar was undetectable. About 99% of her lovely locks were spared from the razor on surgery day, so no baldness and baseball caps. Full energy returned about 6 weeks after surgery. She was fully functional, with an afternoon nap, right away upon returning home. I spent less than a week in a hotel while she was in hospital. Best of all, teh Sinlet told me that “mommy is all better now, she doesn’t shake anymore when you are not home”.

So, thank you Mr. President! Your fear mongering on “health care reform” caused us to take a chance that looks to be having a huge payoff in our quality of life. None of this would have been possible if not for the agenda that would have made this miracle impossible. I would encourage anyone out there that has been living with seizures to contact your neurologist and ask about this procedure.

Anterior Temporal Lobectomy, ask for it by name but hurry this is a limited time offer. Thanks to the Democrat party, this procedure will shortly not be available.