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Jim
Jim, a proud Marine and Vietnam Veteran, bold and lively Irishman, devoted and loving family man with a wife and three kids, loyal Cubs fan, avid fisherman and a construction engineer for the City of Chicago…this is the face of epilepsy. The Horror Of It All You just never could tell when and where one would occur, but you cannot be defeated by this and stop living your life. The day this took a turn for the worse was in 2003. After being seizure free from 1997 until June 22, 2003, Jim was playing softball at a forest preserve at his daughter’s 21st birthday party when he began having numerous Grand Mal Seizures, one right after another. As a result, he was placed in a drug-induced coma for weeks only to awaken with Post-Epileptic Psychosis, a disorder that we had to research on our own. After being hospitalized for two and a half months, he finally came home. After being on one medication after another, he was still having seizures. It was as if the doctors were playing darts with his medications, trial and error; which one will work? Which one has the least severe side effects? Will this keep him “himself”? After dealing with all of this, he was put on disability by the city; he lost his driving privileges and pretty much all of his independence. He was left to sit at home with family constantly worried for his safety. This put him in a horrible depression that would last for years. Why was he like this? Does he have brain damage? Is it the side effects? When can we get him back - our old Jim back? Will he ever be himself again? Will he ever work or drive again? Will he ever get his quality of life back? It was questions like these that we had no answers to and it was this that consumed him and his family every day. The man who had a ton of friends, the social butterfly and life-of-the-party was pretty much left a shell of who he used to be. At this point, he did not even want to be around people, especially new people because he felt he could not maintain proper conversations with them and if they did not know his condition, they would think he is “slow” or “disabled”. Was he? Was it the medications? We still didn’t have the answers. He did not even know who he was anymore. We’ve been seen at several hospitals; Jim even had the Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) implanted to control and prevent/lessen seizure activity. He went through extensive cognitive, occupational, and physical therapy. After numerous MRI’s, EEG’s, and inducing seizures, doctors found that there was scar tissue on his brain from his previous surgery in 1992 and this was supposedly causing seizure activity in his brain. He had his second brain surgery in September of 2006 and from this day he only had 4 seizures, once every few months and they would begin less severe as partial seizures, but would eventually turn into Grand Mals, as usual. The doctors told us to be patient because it could take nearly two years to see the results from his surgery until he would be seizure free. Sadly, on July 7, 2007 Jim passed away suddenly in his sleep not able to make it through the two-year window the doctors predicted. Unfortunately, the week of his death, he was back to his old self again going to 4th of July parties, out to dinner, and even saw a play downtown - all these things, he had not been able to do in quite some time. He even had that hop in his step once again. Epilepsy is a horrible, horrible illness that can strike at anytime, sometimes without warning. So why are people dying from this? Why did Jim have to die and countless others who are affected by epilepsy? Why are there no answers or awareness? Why are WE left to research things on our own instead of receiving answers from the doctors who are “supposed” to know? Hopefully Jim’s story and the story of others will shed some light on this serious disorder and receive more attention and spread awareness.
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Traumatic brain injury is the leading cause of epilepsy for young adults between the ages of 15 and 24 years Dr. Roy Sucholeiki, MD |
