Living with epilepsy and seizures has been a life-long experience for me since the age of two when diagnosed with epilepsy after developing meningitis and being in two comas. At the age of 27, after the birth of our daughter Kelsey, I faced the adversities of medical and emotional challenges for six years of battling the side effects from medicines; ongoing seizures were a daily struggle. Keeping the six to twelve seizures and/or auras at bay had been a struggle for me. Many doctors tried to help me find the right dosages and medications to maintain and control the seizures.
For six years many medical doctors, and one alternative doctor tried many new and old seizure medicines to help me find the levels my body needed to maintain and control the seizures. Changing and adjusting medicines had become a yearly event for me. By the age of 35, as a wife and mother of one, I was having seizures on a daily basis. Throughout the first 35 years of my life, I experienced seizures that began with a starry, day-dreamy, nauseated feeling followed by loss of speech, train of thought, confusion and eventually sleep. I began to take proactive approach to learn about and research as much as I could about epilepsy. I began to work my way through the battlefields of my experiences after being misdiagnosed and misinformed about my epilepsy.
The seizures, fears, and instability had taken over my life and had affected the well-being of my family. Desperate to find some relief from the seizures and some normalcy in life, my daughter and I prayed that God would provide answers. October 16, 2000, my prayers were answered when a doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota diagnosed and recommended the necessary treatment. After two weeks of extensive testing and hospital observation in the Epilepsy Evaluation Center, it was determined that I was a good candidate for brain surgery. The area of my brain that was causing the seizures was successfully removed on November 7, 2000.
Recovery was rough, scary at times, and I suffered from pseudo auras (fake seizures), panic attacks, fear and post-operative depression. It was during this time that I received a book from a friend called God's Healing Power of Words by Charles Capps. In the book, I found much-needed faith, hope, and inspiration.
Recovery included extensive therapy with a clinical psychologist. It has now been more than ten years since my surgery, and I can gratefully say I now have one less medicine, and will soon be completely medicine free for the first time ever in my life after forty years of medicines. I have overcome the fake seizures, fears, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and depression. Ten years of remission without a seizure has marked an unbelievable milestone in my life.
It has been a life changing even to have the opportunity to be independent and live life fully for the first time has been a dream come true.
There are many events and activities of support available for others in the areas of Epilepsy.
My first book published is available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com THERE IS HOPE! by Carla Huelsmann published by Waymaker Publisher 2011
