Hello Everyone,

I've been lurking a couple days and finally decided to post.

First a little about myself.  I'm a 41 y/o male who works (worked) 7
days a week delivering newspapers.  It paid well, but I was a
contractor and thus had no benefits at all.  I generally left for work
at 1:30am and was home by 6:00am at the latest.  From that point until
I got tired enough to go to bed, I'd play on the computer, do house
chores, whatever.  I usually made it to bed by 10:00am, but could
never piece together more than 4 hours sleep.  I'd always go to bed
again by 10:00pm and awake at 1:15am to be out the door at 1:30 to do
it all over again.

That was my life for a couple of years.

About two weeks ago at 8:30am, I was sitting at the computer playing
backgammon on MSN GameZone.  My girlfriend had just left for work.

Out of the blue, my head jerks back, the rest of my body follows, and
I go to the floor in my large desk chair.  My face was vibrating.  I
rolled around on the floor in pain for what seemed like an eternity.
When the vibrating and involuntary movements ceased, I slowly hauled
myself up from the floor, and stumbled to the bedroom, plopping myself
down onto my back, on the waterbed.

I don't remember how long I was laying there, couldn't have been more
than 15 minutes or so, suddenly my body was violently folded in two
like a jack knife.  My face was vibrating horribly.  It felt like my
mouth and nose were moving to different locations on my body.  I
remember thinking, "I screwed up really bad!  I should have made a
phone call!"  I thought I was having a stroke!  I had no idea about
seizures!  And I distinctly remember thinking that I was going to die.
I knew my Girlfriend wouldn't be home until 3:00pm, and I knew it was
early morning.  That seizure seemed to last forever.  It was very
violent, flopping me all over the bed.  When it ended, I remember
nothing until I awoke in the ICU.

At 3:00pm when my Girlfriend came home (I'm relating her story now) I
was lying on my back on the bed, one arm flopping around wildly, but
the rest of me pretty still.  My feet were blue, there was bloody foam
all about my mouth, as I had bitten my tongue pretty bad.  When the
paramedics got there, my body temperature was 105 and I was
unconscious.  Later at the hospital, it came down to 104, but my blood
glucose level was 560.

I was out cold for 7 days in the ICU.  When I awoke, I had no idea
where I was and why I was there.  There were tubes coming out of my
mouth, and when I tried to talk, my lips moved but nothing came out.
I tried to pull the tubes out, but it became evident real fast that my
arms were restrained.

Finally, the tubes were removed from my nose and mouth, and I could
slowly ask what happened.

When I was told by everyone what happened, the memory started to come
back. It wasn't until I got home and my Girlfriend arranged my
computer area the way she found it that day, that I finally had total
recall of those first two seizures.

Has anyone else here had violent seizures that they remembered and
remembered details and thoughts, as I had?  I'm told that's not a
common occurrence?.

And while we're on the topic of memory, since I've been conscious my
memory has been scrambled.  Sometimes the weirdest things escape me.
Like in the hospital, I had to sign my name and couldn't remember how.
I forgot what a fork was used for, once.  Once home, I forgot how to
play a computer game I've played a couple thousand times.  I just
never know when that's going to pop up, and it doesn't seem to end.  I
remember the things once I'm reminded of them or told about them, but
there's always something else.

Now I'm diagnosed a type II diabetic with a seizure condition.  None
of the Doctors know what caused them, but they think I was having them
all day long and wouldn't have survived much longer on my own.

I'm on Tegretol 3x daily, plus all the diabetic stuff and high blood
pressure medication.

I lost my job because I needed to drive, to work.  Where I live, you
lose your license for 6 months if you have seizures.  If you go 6
months without any, you get it back.

So I'm starting to get over the shock of it all.  But the possibility
of it happening again really freaks me out.  The Doctors said that my
EEG showed that there was a likelihood of more seizures.

I've tried to turn over a new leaf on my life.  I'm eating what and
when I'm supposed to, taking the medications, and sleeping like a
normal person.  Hopefully it will be enough.  But I still need to find
new work and a way to pay this whole mess.  Life marches on...

Thanks for letting me dump on you guys.  Look forward to your
responses.

________________________________

-= ®atzofratzo =-