Last Sunday I had a tonic-clonic seizure - my second this year. As my tonic-clonic seizures are fairly few and far between, when they do happen they are unexpected, traumatic events. I hadn't been feeling great, so was having a cheeky mid-day nap. Not realising this, my housemate Josh woke me up (completely my fault for not letting him know) and I started having quite severe myoclonic jerks.
Generally I can tell by the severity of the jerks if it is going to lead to a full tonic-clonic seizure. It almost feels like I'm having a full-blown seizure but somehow 'pulling back' but I have no idea if this has any medical truth to it. When the jerks started to get really bad, I immediately panicked that I was about to have a seizure by myself. Rationally what I should have done is sat down on the floor and waited for the seizure, but the thought of waiting for it alone terrified me, so I quickly made my way downstairs to Josh.
The last thing I remember was sitting in an armchair, shaking like a leaf from panic, telling Josh that I was about to have a seizure. He asked what he should do and I answered "don't panic" before proceeding to fall off the chair into the coffee table in a tonic-clonic seizure. Josh later told me that it wasn't the best pre-seizure advice I could have offered, but as Rory, my other housemate pointed out to him "at least you didn't panic".
And to Josh's absolute credit he didn't panic in the slightest, he was nothing but brilliant. When I woke up I was squished between the sofa and the coffee table, feeling very groggy and confused. Josh explained to me that I had had a seizure, and he later told me he kept repeating "you've had a seizure but you're absolutely fine, you're at home and completely safe" because when he first said it I stared at him like he was speaking another language. When I've had a tonic-clonic seizure I tend to get very clingy/emotional and ask whoever is with me for a hug or to hold my hand. (I don't ever remember doing this, I'm hypothesising it's a subconscious reaction to having had such a fright). This is normally fine, as the people I normally have tonic-clonic seizures in front of are The Mother, or one of my brothers, but I have to admit to being quite embarrassed for acting the same way in front of Josh! I was quite a pathetic figure though, so I'm sure he didn't mind.
Aside from the normal post-seizure pain, I managed to injure my face as I fell (Josh couldn't get to me fast enough). I bruised my forehead and sustained what looked like carpet burns to one side of my face and cut the bridge of my nose on the coffee table. I also bit my tongue as usual which is the injury which seems to be taking the longest time to heal. It could have been a lot worse though - I always live in fear that I'll knock out some teeth! I took the next day off work and slept for a large part of the day out of sheer exhaustion but went into work the day after with a black eye and a scraped nose. Not the most professional look in the world, but everyone was very sympathetic, understanding and kind and it gave everyone lots of new 'watch out, she's Glaswegian' material (all in good fun I must add!) I took a truly hideous photo of myself and my injuries and sent it to The Mother with the caption 'I iz well 'ard'. It made her laugh which was definitely my aim (she was worried sick being 400 miles away from me).
As my tonic-clonic seizures are getting far too frequent, I have decided to increase my medication from 300 mg of Sodium Valproate to 400 mg (to start with). If that fails to stop them, I may need to increase it to 500 mg but slowly, so I hopefully avoid the side effects this time!
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