deja vu...

i sent daniel on his way this morning, on the chinatown bus back to DC to resume his week with his friend. i cried. i always cry when i say goodbye to family. cry like a baby. but today's cry was especially sad for me -- i wasn't just saying farewell to my little brother, i was saying farewell to a security blanket, to a sense of stability. yesterday morning i cried and cried in my apartment. daniel was taking a shower. i sat on my bed and cried. i'm tearing up now. i've got a bruise on the back of my hand from the IV, i'm losing my sense of taste because of these meds, i feel practically useless (almost a liability!) at work. this is weird, friends.

and it's all very very very familiar.

but i thought this was over! i thought this was behind me! i've done this already!

logic says i should be able to do it again, right? but oh good gracious, no.

and i'm so hesitant to write this here, on my blog. this blog started with a couple of seizures. but back then nobody read this little site. now? i've got a modest readership. in the hospital friday, the docs asked me "about when" my last seizure occurred. "about"? um, it was march 23, 2004. march 23, 2004. i will never ever ever forget that date. it changed my life. do i now have to remember july 21, 2006?

i wish i could adequately describe how it feels to wake up from a seizure. i hope you never know how it feels firsthand. i came to, there were three people in my apartment, keith and the two paramedics. i couldn't remember keith's name. i recognized him, but i didn't know from what. i didn't know what they wanted me to do. they wanted me to go somewhere? but i didn't want to. i didn't know if i could trust them.

i was fucking hysterical. a goddamn mess. terrified.

and i didn't settle down until they got me to the hospital, into a room in the E.R. i don't remember the IV going into my arm. i don't recall being moved from the ambulance gurney to the hospital bed. but it happened. it all happened. fuck.

i'm not sure what was worse -- those moments when i woke up, confused, disoriented, scared? or the few seconds before i lost consciousness? because i knew i was gonna have a seizure. i knew. there was no mistaking it. i was twitchy, my brain was racing faster and faster, it got more and more difficult to hold on to a thought... i could feel it coming and i could do absolutely nothing to stop it.

i still feel sore, my muscles ache even five days later. i'm on some serious medication -- 800 mg of carbamazepine a day; 400 in the morning, 400 at night. it makes my skin tingly. it makes my tongue feel dull. yuck.

my handwriting sucks. my signature looks like someone else's.

chronic? terminal? adult onset? these are the terms that are cycling through my head today.