I have to stop and think hard for a moment about how to begin describing the past week. On the one hand it's all an incoherent blur of events, all overshadowed by struggle and distress and I can only recall most of it after looking back through my appointment book. Yet on the other hand there are a couple of important things that stand out that I need no reference for.
For one thing it seems like a basic pattern may have become clear, or maybe I should say clearer since I began to see the pattern a couple of weeks ago. It would seem that my condition has been "the best" on Mondays and has gotten consistently worse each day as the week progresses. That seems logical and fits the photo above perfectly. My batteries get recharged over the weekend and then get weaker and weaker as the week goes by.
I don't know how perfectly the analogy fits in my case and it's only begun to become visible since my boss authorized me to work from home on Fridays back on the 4th of February. Here's how I noticed it the first time: Wednesdays seem to be especially vulnerable days, above all the mornings. I often sit there in bed with my coffee, brain swirling, simply not knowing how in the world I'm going to get through the day, everything in me screaming to stay home with the shades drawn. On one Wednesday like 3 or 4 weeks ago it was late morning at work and I was doing really, really bad when it suddenly dawned on me that I only had to hold out for one and a half more days! I could work from home on Friday! Working in peace and quiet. My heart calmed a touch and I took courage. That helps me every every day of every week now, knowing that I only have to make it through till Thursday, that I can work from home on Friday in peace and quiet. Up till now I'd always thought that every day was just as bad as every other but somehow the change to home office on Fridays seems to have opened the way to seeing a pattern that each day gets progressively worse from Monday through Thursday. Who knows how true it is?
We all know how Epilepsy is: just as soon as you think you understand it, it proves you wrong...
On another note, a couple of "old friends" returned last week:
Seizures and emotional storms. Seizures have been very light and rare and emotional storms practically non-existent since the 23rd of January, the day I woke up with that extremely strange feeling in my brain. That feeling, though much weaker, hasn't left since then, and everything else has changed. As I said there have only been occasional seizures and they have been light, and there have been no real emotional storms to speak of. I cannot say whether or not I've had any migraines because my brain has been in a constant, never-ending epileptic daze to one extent or another since that day, and I don't know if I'd even recognize a migraine through the daze.
That epileptic daze was stronger right from the beginning of the week, especially in the mornings. It was like swimming in a tank of oil. The daze lightened a little in the afternoons.
I've been hit by waves of sadness all week. Deep sorrow suddenly came out of nowhere and I found myself crying for no reason at all. I was especially vulnerable in the mornings and balled my eyes out while making my sandwiches for work and taking a shower. It was like the weight of the world was resting upon my shoulders and I felt like I just could not make it. I kept on going anyway, knowing that God was going to carry me.
I began having complex partial seizures on Monday. They were pretty unpleasant, but short- anywhere from 10 seconds to 1 minute. Then came Thursday. On Thursday I had 2 heavy complex partials that lasted about 20 minutes each! They weren't quite bad enough that I had to go to the floor, which was good since I was on foot in town when I had one of them, but my consciousness was pretty badly affected and I had nausea. I was suffering and felt despair and it seemed like it would never stop. It just kept going and kept going and kept going. Those seizures left me thoroughly exhausted. I had one more seizure late Thursday afternoon, but it only lasted about 3 minutes and wasn't quite as heavy as the other two. In the end I took off work 45 minutes early and went home.
One other thing is maybe worth mentioning, but I have to back up to Wednesday to talk about it. One of my charges is causing major stress at the moment, and we're talking about the kind of personality where when the person has gotten something into their head there is nothing in this world that you can do or say that will get it out of their head again. I had to see that person on Wednesday, and at the same time the epileptic daze and emotional storm climaxed on Wednesday! There I was, immersed in a world of suffering, and that person hit me with a brutal wave of aggression over falsely drawn conclusions, and had surrounded himself by a wall of granite that barred all reason. I felt aggression rising within me as well. A mighty wave of aggression. My spirit wanted to go into full battle mode and wipe the person out! I wanted to rip and tear and shred! But I know full well not to do that. I know never to react in that condition. I ended the meeting as soon as possible. I was praying about it as I got on my bike, just telling God he was going to have to take care of that person because the person wouldn't listen to me, and I think I heard God's still, small voice telling me that it had been good not to react much to what the person had said, in other words to just let the person get it all off their chest.
When it comes right down to it, if God were to hold me accountable for every wrong word I've ever said or will say in the future I would be in a lot of trouble! So would it be right for me to hold the person I'm writing about accountable? That person did me wrong, but I myself have also done many people wrong and will likely do it again, so I am no better and therefore have no right to judge.
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