Big news came from my youngest brother Nathan yesterday; a date – May 30th – has been set for him to have brain surgery in the hopes that his chronic seizures brought on by his epilepsy might be brought under control or even eliminated. Nate has been suffering petite mal seizures since 1989- the year after my mother’s very sudden and unexpected death- and although the doctors have said otherwise, I will always suspect that the trauma of her death may have had something to do with this. At any rate, these seizures have been a regular and most unwelcome part of my brother’s life ever since- and nothing has been successful in bringing him long-term relief. If I understand correctly (a big “if”) Nathan has not been a viable candidate for certain common procedures because the misfiring in his brain is not limited to a certain part of his brain; it seems to occur all over the place, which greatly complicates the situation.
The procedure which will be done on Nathan will involve – warning: graphic information to follow – drilling holes into Nathan’s skull and inserting a device into his brain which will serve two functions. It will monitor of Nathan’s brain waves, and when certain seizure patterns begin to emerge, it will give Nathan’s brain a sort of pacemaker jolt. It is a very new sort of procedure but it seems to offer Nathan new hope that his seizures might finally be a thing of the past. (A few years back, Nathan had a pacemaker-ish device implanted in his neck, but that would go off with its jolt every couple of minutes – so the jolts came at regular intervals and were not in response to anything specific in Nathan’s brain. This device is altogether different and, from the sounds of it, much more sophisticated.)
I talked to Nathan today, and he was making no bones about how scary this is – even as it also offers exciting hope for the future. I reminded Nathan of the story of one of my former students, Nick Barootian, who underwent even more extensive brain surgery and emerged in fine shape- and has not had an epileptic seizure since. Our hopes and prayers are that this will be just as successful.
Funny how something could be so very exciting- and so very terrifying- all at once. I guess that’s what one should expect when one is talking about the Unknown. It’s impossible to know just what the next chapter is going to look like. Nathan’s only certainty is that he doesn’t want to keep living with the “known” of his current situation. And I admire him for having the courage to do something about it. Keep Nathan in your thoughts and prayers, please- that better days might be ahead for him.