Don't panic!

On Monday lunchtime this week (12th May) I get a call from my Neurosurgeon saying that he'd seen some anomaly on my MRI scan and that he'd like to see me sooner rather than later. In fact, could he see me on Tuesday (the following day)? I didn't feel like I could actually say no. So I had an appointment on Tue in the afternoon. With my seizures becoming more frequent, I wasn't sure what he was going to say. He emailed me to confirm the appointment and signed off as "Andy". I had to reply and started off "Hi Andy" and then said that it felt a bit wrong calling him "Andy" when he was a neurosurgeon. In other words, I felt that I should address him as "Mr." but he said "Well, I call you Alan so why shouldn't you call me Andy?"

Since then I've found that my neurologist is called "Charlie".

So my brain surgeon and my nerve specialist are called Andy and Charlie. I think that's brilliant!

Anyway, there was nothing too awful to report from Andy. Just a slight change in the tumour. However, I'm back to scans every 3 months rather than every six.

I'll just have to see how my migration to Keppra goes...

Another seizure? No thanks, I've already had one...

For the first time I had a seizure on London Transport. It was on the Central Line, just as it was arriving at Mile End station. I could feel it coming on and just before we arrived there I took one of my Clobozam but it was too late. I spoke to the guy next to me and said "I'm going to have a seizure and he replied "I don't speak English". Then I spoke to the woman on the other side and told her the same thing. Then, being a nice commuter, and knowing how much it annoys me which someone is taken ill on a train and the rest of us are stuck in tunnels for ages, I dutifully forced my way through the crush and onto the platform. I heard someone say "Shall I pull the emergency lever" and I managed to say "No". then I got onto the platform and so did some nice woman who helped me over to the steps where I sat down. She kept telling me to breathe deeply and kept asking me my name. After that, my mind is blank until I find myself in hospital (Royal Hospital, Whitechapel), being helped onto a hospital bed. I'm aching all over.

After that, they go through the normal motions, checking my details, checking that I know them, then doing the usual neurological tests (eyes following a pencil, testing reflexes, and so on. Then I'm moved to a main ward where I have to have a cannula inserted (one of those things they stick in the back of your or in your forearm, which has a plastic exterior). It's to allow them to inject fluids without constantly sticking needles into you. It's bloody painful, I can tell you.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I'm kept in there until about 11:30pm, and then released.

I'm worried that my seizures are getting closer together, as is my neurologist. Funnily enough, he practices at this hospital as well as the hospital I see him at! What's more, the hospital registrar I spoke had trained under my neurosurgeon! Small world, eh?