As many of you know, I was diagnosed with epilepsy last year after crashing my Magnum SRT-8, and I have been reccomended for brain surgery. I was brought in for observation on the 6th. at UCLA Medical Center. Well after being here since then, it's been a little boring for their observation. They have all these wires on my head and a video camera watching 24/7 to watch and record my siezures. The first three days nothing was happening even as they started lowering my medication. Then Saturday night they had me pull an overnighter. Then we started seeing stuff. I ended up having a total of 7 siezures from 1:30 a.m. until about 7:00 p.m.. This morning I had one at about 9:25 . I will still need to have an MRI before I can go home, so I was told the earliest I can leave is Wednesday. Just thought I'd keep all my friends up to date. I have my cell for anyone who wants to call. Luckily I have my laptop and they have free WiFi, plus I brought a few DVD's to watch. I brought the whole Alien DVD set and a couple of others.

Later,

Ray

If you're at Harbour UCLA..you can watch the the windows and wave at the local G's. me being one of them.

I know how you feel, I was in for 4 days and was driving me crazy. the fun part was the guy next to me hitting the Morphine pump..he went from yelling in agony to a laughter break down in seconds.

Dude...Hope things turn out for the best man...Hospitals scares me~

I'm at the main hospital (Neurological Center) off of Tiverton. I'm also in the (A) bed by the door, so I can't even look out the window. To top it off I'm kind of on a leash with the wires on my head that are hooked up to the EEG monitoring computer and the video camera on me. I got up a couple of times I got up to go to the restroom with a nurse in the room, and the person watching me called over to see what I was doing. I can't get out of the bed without notifying them. As far as being scared of the hospital. I am more afraid of the epilepsy. I never know when an episode will hit and I can't drive until it is under control (no episodes for 6 months), either through medication (which you never know when it will stop working) or by surgery. I must admit that the thought of surgery is very scary, considering it's going to be brain surgery.

Later,

Ray

Good luck, Ray. What medication do they have you on? Tegretol? Dylantin?

Damn man. Hope everything turns out for the best for you. I remember spending almost a month and a half in the hospital after being diagnosed with Diabetes. It sucks but stay strong cause it's for the best. hey at least you got us to keep you company!

Best wishes Ray. Hang in there man.

Best Wishes to you Ray. Take care of yourself.

When I came in, I was taking Dilantin, Lamictal and Keppra. They started lowering my dosages and completely took me off the Dilantin and Keppra by Saturday. Now I am on a lowered doseage of Lamictal only and having the siezures they wanted to record. We'll see what happens, I still need to go in for an MRI too, I already had a pet scan.

Later,

Ray

Sorry to hear about your condition, I hope you get well soon. Is epilepsy curable?

Yeah. Unfortunately they will have to cut out a section of my brain (tiny one I hope). Hopefully through all this, they will determine that I am a candidate for the surgery. Scary as it sounds, it still sounds nice to be free of it and to be able to drive again.

Unless they can positively identify it to some scaring or other foreign and removable item on the brain, I'm pretty sure that is it is not curable, only manageable.

Ray, did they measure the severity and length of any of the seizures? Grand Maul, for x minutes, etc...

Fortunatley I do not suffer from Gran mal siezures. What I have are Complex and simple partial siezures, they last usually about 1-3 minutes. If it's a Complex partial I blackout too, and then even thought the siezure doesn't last that long, I don't really come out of a daze for anywhere from 5-15 minutes. These ones are at a focal point in your brain, so they can be more easily pinpointed for removal. And from what the doctor said, I will be cured. The epilepsy came from scaring like you said from a head trauma from way back when I crashed my street bike up on Palomar Mtn., curiously the date that I crashed my bike and he date I crashed my car last year was February 9th. Just keeping my fingers crossed that they get all the info they need. One of the sucky things too, is that during one of my last episodes lastnight I bit the right side of my tongue and the inside lowerright portion of my lip. I hate it when I do that.


Later,

Ray

You're in our thoughts and prayers Ray. Keep us up to date on your progress bro. Any hot nurses taken care of you?

keep your head up doode. everything will be well. i know how it feels to be in the hospital. i was stuck in a hospital for 4 days straight. had a snowboarding accident. had a brain hemmorhage and fractured 2 of my bones on my lower spine (lumber?) it sucks. now im walkin around with my robocop armor and crutches. i gotta go back to the hospital in 2 weeks to get a MRI on my brain. anyways your in my prayers man. but yea any hot nurses takin care of you? haha