BIKELEPTIC | Slightly Off-Kilter and On Two Wheels

First Ride of the Year & Seizures

I rode my bike for the first time on Sunday since mid-October.

Say what?

Yeah. Really.

Original Photo ©Dropout Bike Club

Back in October there was this little event called Freak Bike Fall, complete with freak bike alley cross racing. It was a gorgeous warm day and I dragged myself out of the house, hauled my aching bones onto the tall bike and pedaled my body over to hang out with a bunch of crazy bikers from the Dropout Bike Club and friends. I rode a bit over 18 miles that day and assisted in marshaling the cross race. Pedaling as fast as my little high-heeled feet could get me back to my boyfriend’s work before he closed shop as I was having a little too much fun and lost track of time.

Then it got too cold.

And I had surgery.

And it was rainy.

And cold.

Which brings us to Sunday. 45 degree Sunday. Deceptively blue skied and gorgeous Sunday. I was determined to ride my bike, garshdamnit!

I was concerned about how my VNS device was going to respond to my riding, as a diligent over-worrier and researcher the information stated that it can with strenuous exercise breathing could get restricted during the device intervals. Having been a couch potato for the last 4 months, literally eating potato chips, this was a very real threat. So, I dug through the First Aid kit, found the bandage tape and adhered one of my magnets to my device on my chest.

Why tape the magnet to the device? Because holding a magnet to the device for longer than a few seconds will, instead of activating it, will temporarily turn it off. This will not effect the function of the device, nor seizure prevention.

It was cold and my legs ached. And what I did learn is that I traded the every 5 minute inconvenience of the device going off with the continual inconvenience of my face mask hindering my breathing by the very essence of it being, well a face mask.

I got to work alright, and when I took the magnet off, I learned that the cold rawness of your throat that you get while riding combined with the activation of the device brought on by removing the magnet is really not that fun a feeling. So, if/when I turn off the magnet again, I am going to totally wait until my core temp warms up until I remove the magnet.

I met with my brand new epileptologist the next day. He is very thorough and combined with his use of the word, “optimized,” of which he wants to make me – and his desire testing including a newer ‘sleep deprived EEG’ – and if my schedule will allow it in the future, come into the hospital for a week for an epilepsy lab. That includes taking me off all of my meds and just let the seizures happen. I jokingly asked him if they could run me through rigorous stress testing during that time, because I wasn’t that confident coming into a hospital for a week-long vacation was going to cause me to have seizures. I explained to him my definition of the epileptic “Three S’s.” (Not to be confused with the LDS When Not to Wear Your Temple Garment “Three S’s”: Sports, Sex & Swimming.) Mine are the triggers to seizures: stress, substances, or sleep. My new doctor like my simple explanation so much that he said that he was going to steal it.

Patent Pending. Patent Pending. Copyright. Patent Pending. 

He understood what I was saying and said that after I do the EEG he would check out the results and maybe if coming in for a week wouldn’t work that an ambulatory EEG would be a better idea.

Because wearing an awesome hat of wires for a week wouldn’t stick out like a store thumb. At that point, I would rather go to the hospital. 

Anyway, after we tuned up my VNS device to 1.0 mA he mentioned that if I wanted to hang out until after his next appointment he could give me another boost. I would have loved that, but I had to rush off to work.

And then Tuesday happened. I can’t talk much about Tuesday. Or Wednesday really. I know some seizures happened.

Sigh.

I went to work on Tuesday. I remember that. I had a couple meetings that day, and thank goodness I took notes and did a bunch of stuff where I have footnotes of that stuff, because it’s not there in my brain. I don’t really remember work. I don’t remember Wednesday as well. I slept off and on all day, so there’s that. But I know that I did some stuff because there’s little records of me doing that. But I remember waking up on the couch a little after 8pm.

And that brings us to the end of the week and today. So, it’s a progress. And it’s still a learning one.