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MY HS SYMPTOMS
Well, this is tricky because they change all the time, day to day, morning to evening. I guess I’ll just share with you some recent events.
The recent bump on my noggin’ came because I was standing at the back of my car and someone pulled the rug from underneath my feet. That’s exactly how it felt. I didn’t just fall. I was standing perfectly upright, doing nothing, and the next moment my feet flew out from under me as if I had been snatched in a tree snare. The only warning was that seemingly the world flipped upside down and my car turned over on its side. In the next millisecond, the next thing that happened was my feet flying up in the air and my head hitting the bumper hitch. To this day I still can’t explain that one; fascinating.
When I wake up each morning I do a self check. Am I present, fully aware and thinking clearly? Whew! Love those days.
If not, what are my symptoms?
Sometimes it’s more like, where am I? It is especially frustrating when I don’t recognize my surroundings. I usually know I’m safe – don’t know how I know; I just know, and I usually recognize something fairly quickly. It might be my dogs (usually); it might be a picture or my phone or the wallpaper – who knows. And from there I begin reconstructing my knowledge of my surroundings. When that happens, full reconstruction can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 or 4 hours. I never know. I just get up and go about my day until my memory kicks in; very strange.
One such episode happened during my stay at a hotel in Houston while I was at the USCR conference. It was bound to happen. I had been working a day job while prepping for it which made for far too many days in a row of long days and then lots of people. AND, I would not have missed it for the world. It gave me a chance to be with many, wonderful, loving people for an entire week. The morning that I had the seizure, I was very late arriving to the conference. The staff at Unity of Houston and some of my Board members stepped up to cover for me. See what I mean about being blessed beyond measure?? I am so grateful.
Here’s what happened that morning. I woke up; didn’t recognize the room, and something was missing. I didn’t realize until later it was my dogs that were missing. I just knew something wasn’t right. I looked around the room though and recognized my belongings so I knew I was okay. It took about 30 minutes for me to reconstruct my memory. Then I made my coffee and it took me two attempts. It flowed over on the first try. I have no idea what happened and I cried while cleaning it up. Then I decided to take a shower. I scalded my leg because I forgot to turn the cold water on. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. I called to let them know I would be late. 2 hours later, and I have no idea where the time went in between, I was ready to walk out the door – bandaged leg and all. I turned the door knob and the little “do not disturb” placard swiped my leg. I had forgotten to put my pants on. I took care of that and walked to the lobby where I sat for a little bit to do a self check on how I felt. So far, so good. So I walked around the entire hotel once to make sure I didn’t have vertigo and was good to drive. I purposefully stayed at a hotel that was within walking distance of the conference, but I was good to go so off I went. By that afternoon I was even able to make a presentation at the conference.
By the way, it took me 6.5 hours to pack and load my car to drive to Houston for the conference. I cannot tell you what I did with all that time. I’ll never know.
Other symptoms are similar to things everyone else experiences. For example, it’s not uncommon for people to put on mismatched shoes. For me, on those days, I can look at my shoes and know something is wrong with that picture, but not be able to figure out the issue. Likewise, if I’m in the middle of an episode and someone points out my mismatched shoes (for example), I still might not be able to connect the dots enough to discern the difference even though we’re standing there looking at them and talking about it; very frustrating.
And people drive by their exits all the time and have to do a u-turn. I’ve been known to do that 3x (same exit) and somewhere in between get completely lost. I have only gotten lost to a debilitating degree twice. Those moments were scary. I am very fortunate in that I can usually tell way ahead of time when I am symptomatic. On those days, I simply don’t drive. The exception has been when I was still trying to be mainstream with a demanding job. I “had” to be somewhere at a specific time. That’s yet another reason why I can’t hold down a normal j.o.b.
I need to stress that I CAN function. I just have to be able to take care of myself and pull back when I’m not firing on all cylinders. Peace and quiet and lots of rest are the keys for me.
It’s kind of like a record skipping. People who have had heart attacks have to worry about enough blood getting to their heart. They are cautious and limited on what they can and can’t do. People who have had strokes have an issue with enough blood getting to the brain. My understanding is that because of the scar tissue on my hippocampus, there are times when enough neuronal fluid does not get to my brain. In times of stress or duress, our brains need more fluid, just like in times of physical stress the heart needs more blood. My body is incapable of delivering more neuronal fluid to the brain on demand because there is a damn dam there (grin).
Medical doctors everywhere would probably roll their eyes at my non-clinical summary, but that’s the best way I know how to describe it.
The morning I wrote this, I had trouble walking so I used a beautiful walking stick I bought from the State Park – I refuse to call it a cane, lol. By that afternoon I could walk, talk and chew gum just fine. Still, I did not drive. I could have, but I didn’t have to so I stayed home. What a relief and another blessing it is to be able to stay home on such days and invoke self care, AND get some work done. I repeat, I am so blessed. Thank you, Karen Drucker, for capturing that sentiment perfectly in song.
I want to make a video that shows what people can expect if they book me as a speaker. I have no idea how to go about getting that accomplished, but it’s on my goal list. I already know the closing tagline I’ll use at the end, borrowed somewhat from Rev. Howard Caesar. Thank you sir. It will be, “This is Debra, reminding you to live each moment from Grace, Gratitude and Oneness.”
Namaste. ❤️
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