I’m a 41-year-old single mother of a 15-year-old boy, loves life to the fullest. I was told I had a seizure when I was 10 months old. I didn’t have anything for years, until one day I was sitting with my siblings and I got a very weird ‘taste’ in my mouth, kind of like putting your tongue on a 9V battery. My father thought it was heartburn or something as I was only maybe 10 or 11 years old. Then in high school I was in class and would just ‘space out,’ once again not knowing what was going on. I was out of school when I started to get these ‘episodes’ more often. I went to see a specialist. After numerous drugs, MRI’s & EEG’s, 3 years of nothing helping, I was talking with my hairdresser, and her son was being seen by a neurologist in Indianapolis at the IU Medical Center and was seeing relief. I got the information and went to my neurologist with the information and asked to be seen by them. He had no problem with it. I went to Indy with my family and the Dr’s put my films on the light board and saw something wasn’t right in one side of my brain. Within a few weeks the neurologist and neurosurgeon had me set up for brain surgery. I was relieved yet scared to death of the surgery, as my grandmother had brain surgery and has never been quite the same. My son was 2 and I was worried that he’d never know his own mother and I would never really know him. Then my neurologist, neurosurgeon and social worker heard of the Gamma Knife Radiation surgery and came to me with that option. I agreed to go through with this surgery as it was noninvasive, and if it didn’t work I could always have the invasive surgery. I was put on meds once again as I had to wait for the ‘machine,’ as I call it, to be put in at the hospital. I’m here to say it’s been the best thing that has happened since it all started. Long story short, I tell everyone in my area about my Dr’s and have been seizure free for almost 13 years now.
