My brother had an absent seizure a few days ago. It turned into a bunch of doctors blaming it on him smoking pot. Sorry - pot CAN LOWER seizure threshold but NOT CAUSE one. At least that is all the research I have done and I was once propositioned to test THC effects on brain tumors in grad school (I kinda wish I did - it would be like a Cheech and Chong movie- how do we get the mice to smoke it man...let's smoke it ourselves and blow it into their cages- haha genius!).
Anyway, he finally saw his neurologist and it turns out he needs to be medicated due to his seizure activity on his EEG. I hope it helps it him. I know it must suck being 18 and facing this now. It especially hurts since I had a friend how suffered the same seizures and he went downhill really bad in his 20s. He was fine until early 20s - by his mid 20's he withdrew from our group of friends, no mater how hard we tried to pull him back. Then he needed to stop going to college because he was suffering memory loss, he needed to stop driving really because he was scared of having a seizure while driving - which happened once or twice that we know of, and he lost his job for having a seizure and falling down the stairs. We still loved him of course - but then his parents bought him a house he was going to share with his mom when she needed to be in town to work and he basically told us he didn't want us to see him decline any further. I know this is not likely AT ALL to happen to my brother, but I wouldn't be able to take that. As it is, we all wonder sometimes how our old friend is. Maybe we shouldn't have let him run away from us - but what do most people in their 20s know of life and death.
I am sure my brother will take his meds and be fine - I just hate to see him struggle with the diagnosis.
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Only a couple more posts in the way back machine here. April 28 th. I was 22+0 week with Vincent. we met the neonatolgist. He told us there was nothing he could do - Vincent would have severe brain damage if he could overcome the 1% chance of living. He said if we were talking about a 24 week baby with no other complication we would have an o.k. shot. However, we had a 22 weeker who was growing 2-3 weeks behind. We didn't have time to wait for him to get bigger and with the poor flow he was absolutely brain damaged. The doctor was straight forward but kind. He did look at us and say "I'm so sorry. You are Mom and Dad and you need to think of what in the best interest of Vincent (all my doctors used his name - I am SO grateful for that) ... and you need to try not to prolong his suffering. His kidneys are failing, his brain is starving, I don't think he feels pain because I think his brain is too far gone to feel it". It meant alot to have it put to me that way.
My BPs started to rise, my kidneys started to spill even more protein and I needed to deliver.
Since we knew Vincent wouldn't survive the delivery (with the lack of oxygen from the placental flow) we choose an induction. The c-section would have gotten everything over quicker and perhaps we would have held him alive - but the doctors said they had to weigh my risks more heavily and a c-section was strongly discouraged.
The first dose of c.ytotek was administered at 6 pm. I would labor for 16 hours and 12 minutes.
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