This is the story of my first seizure.
It’s hard to believe, much less type, that something like that happened to me, of all people. Someone who's always been the sort to push their body till it practically gave out. Tired after work?
No excuses. I didn't pay $45 for a month pass at the gym for it to go to waste.
Seizures used to be something that happened to ‘epileptics’ or any others who’d have to deal with simply having been dealt a bad hand. Friends and I would make joking retorts about how certain scenes in movies should be marked as triggers for people who get seizures…
Now that threat seems all too real!
It all happened this past Tuesday, May 17th. I went to class in the morning, then was meeting up with my boyfriend afterwards.
However, this meeting up with my boyfriend was quite a bit different than our usual hangouts. It was following 3 weeks of drama. This drama started when he purposely kept the fact that he was going for a bike ride with a girl who we’d previously talked about as having a ‘really good body’, being a gymnast and all, away from me. The only reason that I got it out of him was after noticing how oddly he answered my questions about his plans for the next day, leading me to inquire further.
That went on for 3 weeks because he was an idiot and ended up going biking with her 2-3 times, despite my thinking I'd made it perfectly clear that I wasn't cool with it after catching him in the lie the first time.
Anyway, not going off on too much of a tangent, I was a wreck. I didn’t even know that I could cry that much within a pretty short period of time.
Which understandably, led me to having issues with sleeping.
Stress and fatigue were both big contributing factors, according to the doctor. Both suspected as being the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Back to the hangout this past Tuesday:
This was the first time we were going to be hanging out without the intention of my getting to the bottom of his many excuses or telling him that I want to break up. The plan was to watch Game of Thrones, which is a bit of a tradition we’ve had for the past 2 seasons.
Following a visit to Walmart and picking up some things to put together a vegan tortilla for dinner back at his place, watching Game of Thrones was what we did. All was well until about halfway through the episode, when I got incredibly tired. Tired to the point that I began hoping that the episode would soon be over so that I could ‘rest my eyes’.
I did make it to the end of the episode just fine, I remember that. Next thing that I can recall after the end-credits is his dad standing in the basement as I lay on the pullout couch, soon followed by a lady in uniform. A lady who I’d later follow into an ambulance en route to the emergency room not too far away.
At some point, my boyfriend and/or the paramedic told me that I’d had a seizure.
We were going to the hospital nearby to get some tests done (CT scans, urine test, blood test, etc.)
From this point onwards, it was the weirdest thing to be told things that I’d done of which I had zero recollection.
I knew that I had been laying turned sideways, arms crossed. No surprise there, as that’s always been my preferred position to fall asleep in. My boyfriend first clued into something going not going so well when I started making really unusual movements with my torso, for the mostpart. After which he saw a bit of foam around my mouth, in addition to my lips turning blue. This led to a quick realization of what was going on and he tried to pry my mouth open, in hopes of preventing my choking on my tongue or even biting it off. (I did get a good bite or two on it beforehand, as it's still a bit sore but alas, better sore than cut in two!)
Another part of the seizure of which I have zero recollection is the smile. My boyfriend claims that at some point, assumedly after the foam and he’d managed to open my mouth a bit, is that I smiled at him. In a very weird way, which I obviously cannot recall but I’d imagine would look a bit dopey.
(Turns out this is known as the ‘post-ictal smile’, or a somewhat common occurrence where patients faces will contort into what is commonly known as a smile, despite implying the occurrence of a seizure versus actual mirth.)
When we chatted after the fact, he mentioned that at that point, he thought I was pulling a prank on him. I’ve never had a seizure before or anything, and wasn’t having the typical sort of seizure that comes to mind for most when they imagine all of someone’s limbs jerking around violently.
Though I often do kid around when we’re just chilling or even dozing off. One of the things that led him to realize that this was for real was when a bit of foam appeared, in addition to my lips turning a shade of off-white.
That, as well as the fact that I was in no way responding to anything he’d say to me during the actual event.
(I tell him now that at no point, neither before nor after the incident, would I ever joke about a medical thing such as this. Just so that he knows for future reference, knock on wood that it never happens again. 🙏)
Most Helpful Opinions