Jake is fine...

I've been trying to write this post for over a day with no success. I kept thinking I would gain some distance from the situation and I would be able to make this a little less dark, a little less scary. But I can't, so I'm just going to lay it all out there for you.

On Saturday night Jake had a seizure and it was without a doubt the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life and no matter how hard I try, every time I close my eyes the only thing I see is him convulsing on our couch. Right now it is 3:45 am and I'm wide awake. Every time he makes a noise, every time the dogs make a noise, every time I hear something and I'm not in the same room as him I think he's having a seizure again. I must have asked him 50 times yesterday if he was ok, if he was feeling alright, anything feel funny?

Inherently I know that if he is going to have another one there is nothing I can do to prevent it but I just don't want him to be alone. I don't want him to hurt himself any more than he already did. He made hamburger out of the sides of his tongue on Saturday and I'm afraid if he were standing up or doing something it could be much, MUCH worse.

Perhaps I should give you a little more information. Jake is 27 years old. He has never in his life been known to have a seizure. On Saturday we were sitting on the couch watching a movie and all of the sudden he went ridged. His arms went straight out and he started foaming at the mouth. In total it probably only lasted 30 seconds to one minute but that one minute seemed like an eternity.

By the time he stopped convulsing I already had 911 on the phone. When he stopped he just got very still and for a moment all I could think was that he was dead. Then he started to breathe and I remember saying to the guy on 911 oh my god he's breathing!!

I don't think it took very long for the ambulance to get there, perhaps five minutes but it seemed like SOOO much longer. I called my mom and she came over right away to watch Zack. When Jake came to he was confused and disoriented. You would look at him but there was not really anything behind his eyes. It was scary for me because the last time he had that look was when he was using and I kept thinking he had done something or taken something.

I rode in the front of the ambulance and he rode in the back (obviously) and by the time we got to the hospital he was acting perfectly normal again. They did a CT scan and it was perfectly normal. They ran a series of blood tests and they were all negative for any infections or other unusual items. Finally they ran a urine analysis and tox screen. All negative for any drugs or chemicals that could have seeped in through his skin.

The bottom line is we have no answers. Which means we have no way of knowing if this was a one time occurrence or if he could begin to have seizures on a regular basis. Right now, Jake seems to be fine. He had a bad headache yesterday morning but they said that was normal. He also slept most of yesterday which I have also been told is normal after a seizure. From talking to him I get the impression that this has left him just as shaken as it has me. After all, he has no memory of what happened and to have someone tell you something happened to you but not be able to remember it I'm sure would be a little scary.

As for me, I just keep remembering a NY Times article I read a week or so ago. I saved the link because I thought I could use it in a post but I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be this one. The article is called "My daughters are fine, but I'll never be the same". This article is about his children but I think the same context can be applied here.

I never in my wildest dreams imagined that this would happen to us. Of all the demons I thought we were fighting this one never even entered my spectra but now that it has I can't go back to naively thinking that nothing will ever happen to anyone I love. It could, and it did and right now all I really want is to find away to be able to close my eyes again and not see that image, to hear a noise and not think the worst, and to sleep at night and not wonder what I will wake up to.