I have had temporal lobe epilepsy for about 30 years (since age 9). The
seizures manifested in smell and vision hallucinations as well as voices in
my head. After 25 years of unsuccessful drog therapy my condition became
worse with three grand mal seizures. That is when I decided to give a shot
to the teporal leboctamy. Three tests were done prior to the surgery in a
period of about 8 months.
test1. One week in a hospital while off medication. I was wired to the teeth
searching for clues on where the seizures originate from. Surely enough when
they took me off medication, I produces at least three strong complex
partial. They were able to find the focal point.
test2.  I am not sure what the official name for it, but they showed me
pictures and asked me to talk about them. They asked questions and looking
for clues on how strong mentally I was.
test3. Most interesting to me. The so called WADA test. They pushed up a
plastic tube in my vane from my leg to my brain. They applied some kind of
chemical first to the left side of  my brain, than to the right side. What
they did is disabled one part of my brain at a time. When one part of the
brain was disabled, thay showed me pictures and asked me to identify them.
When the left side was disabled I was trying to talk very hard, but no word
came out on my mouth. It was so interesting, that I could not talk even when
I wanted to. I was able to thing clearly, but was not able to talk.
After about 10 minutes test, they disabled the right side of the brain and
then I was able to talk. They concluded, thay they would remove part of the
right temporal lobe and still keep my ability to talk.

They scheduled me for surgery. The surgery itself took about 6 hours, and
they kept me in the hospital for three days. When thay saw that I am
alright, they let my wife to take me home. What they did not know is that
during the surgery thay infected me with meningitis. My back was stiff for
about two weeks, and I hardly could move. Finally they asked my wife to take
me back to the hospital. Than thay took fluid sample from my spine and found
out the meningtisit infection. They gave  me medicine that took the
infection away after two more weeks.
Other than that the surgery went well. I was driving my car two weeks after
the surgery, first short distance and later on the highway. I stayed home
for six weeks after the surgery, then went back to work full time. I drove
my car to work for about three weeks, but then I realized that I was not
ready for it. I was SO SCARED on the highway, I can not really explain. I
always felt an urgency to pull aside, because I always thought that I would
crash my car.
Three weeks later, I realized that it did not worth it. Fortunately I had a
work that was sittinng right on a bus line from my house. I tiik the bus for
the next 6 months when I felt much better behind the wheel.

I am definetely glad that I took the risk and had the surgery. I am still on
medication, but it is much better controlled than before. I tried to get off
medication on my own, but the auras became very scary, including hearing
loud voices in my head. So I went back to medication and just hoping that
the seizures won't come back. As far as I know in some instances the
seizures come back after many years post-surgery.

I am encouraging you to have a very detailed test yorself prior to the
surgery as many things can go wrong.

God bless you in your decision.

Howdy JR!

I was going to have epilepsy surgery. After some extensive testing, it was
determined that they couldn't do it since I have epileptic activities in
both temporal lobes.

Instead, I got a Vagus Nerve Stimulator.

For information about the VNS, see my site:

http://www.howdydave.com/vns.html

They have to be able to identify with accuracy the area from which the
seizures originate eg a lesion on an MRI scan. They considered surgery
for me but the process ground to a halt almost before it started when I
had a clear MRI and only one slow wave on an EEG. Not good enough to
locate the focus and direct the surgeons to which part to remove.

Surgery is a last resort when all meds have failed, and they are less
willing to operate nowadays unless it's really necessary. There are a
large battery of tests which you must undergo before they will put you
on the 'Yes' list, and I think you are talking of a time scale of 9-12
months even before a decision is made.