Romance

Alicia (5 years old) got a present yesterday from a boy in her class named Aleix, who, according to Alicia, wants to marry her. It was a necklace, wrapped in blue paper, with her name written in childish letters. As She unwrapped it, he told her he had made it himself. She stared at the big, colorful beads and asked "Is it made of candy?" and actually bit it. Talk about spoiling a romantic moment!!

Bats in the bellfree

You won't believe this... We went to see Mystery man yesterday. After driving for almost three hours we only had to wait for 4 hours to be called in. Waiting kills me. I'm worse than a kid, I get fidgety and anxious, even if I have magazines or crosswords to entertain me. It doesn't work. Maybe it would be ok if I really believed the waiting is worthwhile but...

The thing is, Dr Mystery asked some questions to my husband about his last seizure, did his little massage, and while he worked, I tried to get more information from him. I pressed until he told us more about him, but I have the feeling he only told us tales of how wonderful he is and how he's helped people. Even a very good neurologist in France, he said, asks him for advice with patients with epilepsy. "How?? How do you help?" I asked. Well... here comes the freaky part, he uses a pendulum. What the f*¨*k?? Yes, you incredulous bunch of unbelievers (I'm in here too), the pendulum helps him know if meds are good or not. So I pressed a bit more, completely clueless as to how this is supposed to work. "Why not try it with my husband?" Ok, he said. He left the room and came back with his ehem... pendulum. A silver chain with some apparently silver stuff hanging. Try not to laugh, ok? He asked what medication he takes and, completely serious, he pronounced the name of the meds while staring at the pendulum: "KEPPRA".... voilà, it doesn't work, keppra is not good for him, according to this incredible scientific experiment. And then the other drug: "ZONEGRAN".... some seconds and the pendulum says yes, it seems to work (we're so relieved the pendulum approves). Hubby and I stared at each other throughout the whole procedure, and he had to supress his laughter. "But you don't even have the pills here??" he just managed to tell the man while grinning at me. THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT, he said with his heavy French accent. The pendulum even told us when to take the pills!! Can you believe that??? All that trouble to end up with a lunatic?? Not to mention, all those years that laboratories spend on investigation, all that money, when all they need is a pendulum!!!! Oh my...
hubby is still willing to give him another chance, though. He says he may have his .... esoteric side but his massages might work... Insert BIG SIGH here.

New drug and another EEG

We went to see his epileptologist yesterday. We like him, inspite of the fact that we haven’t been able to stop seizures. He asked some questions, and then told us the best thing to do is to combine two medications. He had been taking valproat in the beginning but since it didn’t work we switched to keppra and now it will be both keppra and zonegran. In a month and half my husband needs to stay awake for a whole night and go to the hospital for an electroencephalogram to see how his brain responds to sleep deprivation and irritation. If I understood correctly, once there they’ll let him fall asleep and wake him up shortly after (how rude). So far, his brain seems perfect according to MRI, scans and such. We just don’t get why at this point in his life he has seizures and how come we follow this two month pattern... Before he had any seizures, and since he was 14 or 15, my husband remembers that he would suddenly jerk his arm without having control over it. Since this only happened once or twice a year, he hadn’t really thought it was important. The doctor did, though. He said it was a myoclonic jerk and it was clearly a sign of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy but now he’s not so sure because he explained that most (80%) JME respond well to valproat and seem to be fairly easy to control, but not his epilepsy. Maybe, just maybe, it’s another type. We’ll see... Thanks for listening. This must be a boring read. My eldest daughter was kind of scared on Sunday. When she saw her father arrive home she smiled, but she came closer to me also and took my hand...
Also, I’m sorry if I don’t comment on your blogs people, it’s kind of rude not to show up when you’re being so nice!!! I’ll do better... Today we’re going to France again to see Mystery doctor. He’s not so mysterious and not a doctor, but I still call him that ;-)

Damn pattern

I know I'm late, but I think I set myself some unrealistic standards!!
When I said I was anxious that hubby had not had a seizure in almost two months it's because so far, his condition seems to follow this pattern. In a way we were both happy that he seemed to be doing fine but at the same time, we knew we wouldn't be completely satisfied until we could say "it's been more than two months... more than three... " and we could leave epilepsy behind. But, he had a seizure yesterday (sunday). I was making lunch and he took the girls to a park nearby. Almost one hour later my cell phone rang. It was him except the voice on the end was not him, it was a woman. "Hello, you don't know me but we're here at the park and..." I didn't let her finish: "it's my husband? He had a seizure?". "Yes, but he's ok now, he's sleeping, we called an ambulance and I'm with your daughters"... She sounded calm. So I rushed to the park. There were some people gathered around him, and my daughters were playing with other kids. Thank god they all helped us. We don' really know these people, but we usually meet at this park, so we've actually seen each other before. When his seizure was over they went through his pockets, found his cell phone and tried to find a number that read "home" or something similar. The funny thing is they first called a restaurant without knowing, because it was listed under "Grandma's" which is the name of the restaurant :-)
So the ambulance came, they didn't take him to the hospital because I said no (I know it's no use, they would just refer us to his epileptologist) and instead took him to what we call a CAP (Primary attention center would be the rough translation). He just lay on some kind of stretcher and waited to be fully recovered. The doctor checked his eyes, coordination and such and after a while he said we could leave. This process is just like suddenly turning the computer off if you know what I mean. His brain shuts down suddenly and then he has to recover all the programs on his "hard disk" and that's kind of slow and disquieting. He mumbles incoherent things and slowly remembers people, places and bits of information. But when the reality of what had happened struck him, he was on the verge of tears and I hate to see him like that. He felt he was almost making it... it would have been two months... but no... We'll go see his epileptologist today.
I called my sister and she took care of the girls, and took them to a fashion show. My mother sells bridal gowns and she had some of her dresses on this show. I took some pics in the afternoon...

I'm a crappy blogger. I think it's a curse that I decided to start a blog in ENGLISH. I chose this language because 90% of the blogs I visit are written in English and it also gave me a chance to practice. BUT everytime I write I feel so uncertain... Am I choosing the right words?? Are they spelled correctly? Grammar mistakes??? I don't want you to tell me my writing is ok, I'm just explaining how I feel. I'll try to post something everyday, see how it works... even if it's only a photo. It's almost been two months since hubby had a seizure. That makes me kind of anxious... I forgot the whole baptising idea. I honestly can't say I believe in God, even though that would be so comforting. I was reading the Bible but I'm still stuck in the Old Testament. So I feel it would be unfair to force/induce my daughters to believe when I actually have such contradictory feelings about religion.
Lately my work hasn't been so boring. I had to go hunting with some men to write a report, and it was kind of fun... and even better, I had a chance to interview Ma.r.ja.ne Sa.tr.a.pi (I'm writing it this way just in case someone at work googles for her name and finds my silly blog). She's an Iranian cartoonist, living in France, and comes from a very liberal family. She's straightforward, looks you in the eye and can be quite intimidating. I have the feeling she says exactly what she wants and hates political correctness. I actually have her first books and it was really interesting...
Tonight we're going to a party hosted by our company... But we're like Cinderella, we'll be back home around midnight!!! (hubby is not supposed to stay up so late...)