It’s 10pm on my third day at the epilepsy monitoring unit. My first visit here was three days. Tomorrow this will become my longest visit. Still no seizures. Tonight I’ll go to bed closer to my normal time. I’m told it’s not good to do sleep deprivation multiple days in a row. I am glad of that. Two nights in a row of going to bed at 3am was quite enough for me. We’ve stopped my seizure meds tonight too. I hope that this step pushes me into having some seizures.

It is so strange to hope for a seizure. I am in probably the safest place in the world to have a seizure, but still I am asking for something that I know gives me headaches and stomachaches and just generally can make me feel like absolute hell. I am also asking for something that I know always has that chance of killing me. It’s not a big possibility. SUDEP is pretty uncommon, but I am a middle aged woman who lives alone and has uncontrolled seizures. That puts me in a high risk category. So, even here in the safest place in the world asking for seizures seems such a risk.

I re-watched the documentary about the history of Mayo today. I’d watched in December too. I was reminded today that Dr. Charlie was the brother who did much of the work on brains. So, laying here in my hospital bed waiting for the seizures found myself calling on the spirit of Dr. Charlie to watch and guide. That’s it, that’s what I can do. I wonder how many patients every day call on the spirits of Dr. Charlie, Dr. Will and their father and the nuns.

What else is there to do with the crazy balance of fear and hope that comes with asking for lightning to strike in my own brain? I suppose I might again look at it as rebirthing in some way. If women looked only to labor, they would never give birth. I need to remind myself that my seizures right now are only the labor that I need to go through, the birthing to my new life. I believe that I will be seizure free. This is just a process for me.