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"Post-ictal" confusion
Wed, 01/07/2009 - 00:06Hey all,
Most of you don't know me, but, as I stated in my introductory thread, I'm new to all of this (Holy pleonasm, Batman!).
The first time I ever witnessed a seizure was during my video EEG in November. Naturally, I saw quite a number of them over the next few nights.
What has stuck with me wasn't necessarily the seizures themselves. It was the period afterwards. The doctors and nurses would begin asking a series of question to the teenager in the bed next to me. I'm sure some of you are familiar with the routine:
"What's your name?"
"David." He got that one right.
"Do you know where you are?"
"September...19th. Or 20th. I think."
So David was capable of responding to verbal cues, but he wasn't actually able to comprehend them. He knew he was being asked general questions, but he didn't know what he was being asked.
Essentially -- I think -- his brain wasn't really functioning, at least not at anything resembling a normal level for him. While it was in the process of recovering, David's brain had created a limited level of awareness. He wasn't in a seizure state, he wasn't back to normal, he was sort of in the middle somewhere, almost as if it was a survivalistic instinct. His brain had developed a third state.
The mere fact that some of you have gone through this so many times that your brain reacts this way is heart breaking. It was by far the most devastating realization of my four day stay in the hospital.
I hope this is not a breach of etiqutte as, again, I'm new to this and only suffer from absence seizures, but is this what it's really like for a lot of you? What is that recovery period like? How does all of that compare to the seizures themselves?
Re: "Post-ictal" confusion
Submitted by jasssmit on Wed, 2010-09-01 - 21:48
I'm extremely confused afterwards. Some mornings I struggle to even remember where I work. Eventually the fog will lift, but a lot of memory gets erased which leads to more confusion like "who was that person just talking to us that acted like he knew me really well", or "we had a meeting about this last week? Really?"