Category: fear

Background: I was teaching eighth grade science. I was fragile. I was constantly in pain due to an arthritic knee. My blood-work had many abnormalities. I never felt well. I had trouble sleeping. I cried a lot. I called the bouts of tears “emotional sneezes.”

I met with my doctor to discuss disability. We figured the root cause of my health issues was all the pain from my knee. I had a knee replacement in January. 

Rose had a seizure at school while I was home recuperating from surgery. She tore up her face on the asphalt while planting Knock-out roses during her horticulture class.

I worked very hard for six weeks to get fit to return to the classroom. I went back to teaching just as Rose went home-bound due to an increase in seizure activity.

This is the story of the turning point for ME. When I decided that I was not going to do anything else but try to get the right treatment for Rose.

As you read this, remember that we are fine now. This is part of our past.

I was sitting on the couch watching television. Rose got up from the chair to change the channel. There was a crash. She fell toward the right of the TV cabinet. Her head hit the heat shield behind the woodstove which is just inches behind the sharp corner. There was blood all over the rock hearth.

I always rush to her to help,but I couldn’t move. Her dad appeared. I was frozen on the couch. I was no longer in charge of myself.

All I could do was scream. It came from somewhere deep inside of me. It was not human, it was primal, from the past, from somewhere far away. It was like something shattered and an explosion of sound came through a hole from somewhere else. I couldn’t stop screaming.

I do not know what happened next. I was blind. Everything was whooshing out from me so that nothing could enter. It was like I was emptying my body of all its emotion and energy. I was exploding and emptying. The scream was so strong, I could not stop it.

My soul was screaming.

The heat-shield was bent, but I was broken.

After this event, I decided I was done with everything else in this world. I was doing nothing else. This had to stop. She was four inches from a fatal fall. Nothing else mattered.  I quit my job as soon as we had an Epilepsy Monitoring Unit appointment. I was SEIZURE MAMA full-time. I read everything from everywhere about seizures and epilepsy drugs.

It paid off.

To be continued…

SEIZURE MAMA

We should have suspected something.  It was the only short line at the Duomo.

I should have wondered why I had to check my small bag before entering.

Everything was crowded and strange, so we just went with the flow.

We entered the door and immediately started climbing up steep stairs in a narrow passageway.

I do not do well in confined spaces, especially in crowds. Heights make my feet itch.

We continued to climb, and climb. The walls got closer together.  My tall son actually scraped his face on the rough plaster because the walls tilted inward.

I did not want to continue, but there was no way to turn around and go down.

Finally, there was an open landing for me to pull over and let others pass. It was then we discovered that we were in the line for the dome/cupola of the Duomo.

There were four hundred and sixty three steps(scalini).

Aside from my own fears of small spaces and heights, was my fear that Rose would have a seizure.  Her triggers were excitement, exercise, exertion, exhaustion…everything.

Here we were going up, up, up.

After my panic attack, we continued upward.  Finally, there was a place to exit out of the line to enter the inner base of the dome.  NO.  I had come this far.  I was not leaving my family.  I was not leaving Rose.

The last steps were actually rungs of a ladder.  When we finally popped out to see the city of Florence, it felt like I had entered heaven.

Our journey was over. We were safe.  I could breathe.

I will remember this for the rest of my life. That awful journey to the top. The relief and joy when we finally arrived.

This could be the end of a lovely story of bravery and perseverance. But there is more.

Relax it turned out fine.

We marveled at the sights and felt the wind in our faces. We hated to start down, but we knew the journey would not be as stressful and confining.

When we finally got out and sat down to rest, Rose looked a little flushed in the face. I told her she should take one of her emergency pills. She admitted that she had left them in the apartment.

Mama had another panic attack while the boys sprinted across Florence to get the bottle of medication.

All’s well that ends well.

SEIZURE MAMA