An Unexpected Complication

If you are like most people who have never had any serious health problems in the past, you probably don't really consider the possibility of waking up one morning and finding yourself lying in a stretcher, inside of an ambulance with sirens blazing, rushing to the nearest hospital at top speed. Neither did I.

But at 10:35 a.m. on Sunday morning, March 7th, 2010 I had that very thing happen to me. I woke up, lying on my back, looking up at an EMT. He explained to me that I had had a seizure, and that they were taking me to the hospital. He said that I seemed to be ok, and would probably be fine.

Many thoughts were running through my head. At first I thought that he was joking with me. A seizure!? I mean, come on. I've never had a seizure before, that doesn't make sense. But I quickly realized that he was serious. Next I thought that it might be a dream. But I thought about it, and it was "too real" to be a dream. So, I just lay there, confused, not really sure what to think.

When we got to the hospital they wheeled me out of the ambulance, through the extirior doors, through several hallways, through some other doors, and finally into my room.  Then they transferred me to my hospital bed. By this time I had regained some of my strength, so I was able to help them out while they were moving me over to the other bed. Then the nurse came in and checked my vitals and some other things. Everything seemed to be normal.

After some time the doctor came in and explained that it's not uncommon for an adult to have one seizure in the course of his life, so they weren't going to prescribe any medicine this time. They let me go about 2 p.m. My brother, Jeremiah, was there with me, at the hospital as well as my dorm counselor so my dorm counselor drove us back to campus. I went back to bed and slept for a couple hours. Seizures are quite exhausting after all. After my nap I started on my homework for my classes on Monday. School doesn't slow down for anything, not even seizures.  =)

I had some doctor's appointments to get an MRI and an EEG, and some other stuff to try to find out what was causing my seizures. The MRI and EEG both didn't show anything, which I suppose is a good thing, it meant that I didn't have any tumors or unusual brain activity. 

I went along fine until April 11th when I had my second seizure. I woke up as they were transferring me from my bed to the stretcher, then I don't remember anything else until we arrived at the hospital. I think that I actually got the same room as the time before, room 9. They did the same things that they did last time, only this time they prescribed me some medicine, 1000mg of Keppra daily.

Everything seemed to be going pretty well after that for a while. My memory verses were taking a whole lot more effort to memorize, but I didn't really think about it at the time, I just figured that they were harder verses. I would also sometimes not remember things that I said, or did. People would tell me an inside joke that I was supposed to get, but I couldn't remember it. Once they explained it to me, I would remember though.

My grades in all of my classes took a noticeable dive. For example, Biblical Church Leadership, I was getting a 98% in the class up until I was put on medication. The class is basically rouge memory work. If you can learn the notes and be able to spit them back out then you'll be fine on the test. On my first test I got about a 94%, and the first verse test I got 97%. That test was before the medication, but after my first seizure. I studied a little bit more for the next test and got a 61%, and I studied 2 and a half times for more for the second verse test, and I got 50%. Since I had been doing well on the homework and the verse quizzes I managed to not absolutely kill my grade and keep my "A." But those two tests alone brought my grade down from a 98% to a 90.7%, but it was still an "A" so I didn't complain, just thanked God that he kept it at an "A."

I still hadn't figured out that it was the medicine that was causing these problem. I just figured that for some strange reason things weren't "sticking." I didn't even consider the fact that it might be the medicine causing these problems until my mom informed me that those are all possible side effects of Keppra.  It was at this point that I put 2 and 2 together and ended up with 4. I realized that it was the medicine that was causing my memory problems and all that. I still continued to take it because that's what I was supposed to do, but I was glad to have found the source of the problems.

I had another seizure on the Tuesday of Finals week, that wasn't much fun. Same routine, went to the hospital, they decided that nothing was that wrong and let me go. So, I've had 3 trips to the hospital, but I've actually had more seizures than that. At the time I didn't realize that they were seizures it just felt like I had had a load of bricks dropped on me while I was sleeping. But I had the exact same symptoms: feeling like my legs were half-way paralyzed, small red spots on my face, exhaustion, and grogginess. All in all, I've probably had 7 or 8 seizures starting back in November.

So that's my seizure story. My most recent was this past Saturday morning. I woke up lying on the floor, and by the time I made to the bathroom I had figured out that I had had a seizure that morning. I've only had seizures while asleep so it isn't really that bad. The day of the seizure I don't feel so great, but by the next day I'm feeling basically back to normal.

I dislike pills. I won't take a pain pill if I have a headache unless it's really, really, really bad. I don't really have a good reason, I just dislike medicine, it's one of my few completely irrational behaviors. But I have been "learning to get over it" I guess, now that I have become a pill popper. =)

This is Tim, signing out.

(None of the pictures in this post are mine, credit goes to Google images.)

I Can Do All Things Through Christ

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (Phil. 4:13)
This semester I took a class that drove me to claim this verse as my own. A class that made me face something that has been something that I have feared ever since my early years growing up. Thatwould be the fear of water, and the class would be lifeguarding class.

Hold on. Why in the world would someone who is afraid of water take a lifeguarding class? That's just stupid. =\ Yeah. . . you're probably right. But that's just what I do.

I had a good reason though. I'm going to be counseling at a camp this summer and the camp is right on a lake and it's good for the camp's insurance rates if all of their counselors are certified lifeguards. The camp actually offers a lifeguarding crash course so technically I could have gotten certified at camp. But there is no way that I would have been able to pass the examination. So originally I was just looking for a swimming class so that I could learn how to swim so that I could pass the life guarding class at the camp. Sadly, BJ doesn't offer any swimming classes, so I had to go for the next best thing, lifeguarding class. =P

Now, my fear of water was not that I would freak out when I would see water, or anything like that, but when I would submerge my head, my heart rate would increase rapidly and my whole chest area would lock up. Which is why I could not do underwater breath holding contests because even though I could hold my breath for slightly over a minute on land, under water that would drop to about 20 seconds.

Technically I guess you could say that I already knew how to swim. I could get from one side of the pool to the other. But the manner in which I would do so was with much splashing and keeping my head out of the water at all times. If I put my face down in the water I would not be able to get the air that I needed. The whole - exhale underwater, turn your face to the side, breathe, and then repeat - thing was not working for me. First off I could not exhale while under water. It would take all of my conscious thought just to keep my lungs from locking up and to exhale in a controlled manner, so I couldn't breath out and keep swimming at the same time. Secondly, when I did turn my face to the side and breathe in, I would inevitably suck in an amount of water with the air, which would not only hinder my breathing, but it would also hurt, since now I have chlorine and salt water rushing down my breathing tube, which never feels good. Part of our homework was to swim 300 yards, 12 lengths, twice a week. Given enough time I could get back and forth 12 times in that pool but it would take a great deal of effort.

I claimed Philippians 4:13 as my verse for this task, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me" (NASB). At the beginning of the semester many times I went to the pool and spent a good hour just practiced breathing. I would take a breath, put my face under the water and breathe out. Practicing and practicing for multiple hours just to learn to breath naturally and be able to do it without thinking about it. I probably looked pretty ridiculous to the lifeguards on duty, standing there in the shallow end doing nothing but blowing bubbles the whole time.

Eventually I got good enough at breathing that I advanced to the next step and swam and breathed at the same time. After a couple weeks I finally figured out how to not suck in water when breathing in, that helped me swim quite a but better. I figured out that I needed to exhale most of my air with my face underwater, but still keep a little bit of air so that when I turned my face to breathe in I could blow out that last bit of air which would blow away all the water right around my mouth. Then when I breathed in, I didn't suck in water.

After I learned how to breath well enough to not inhale a bunch of water, I worked on my stroke. I sought advise from friends of mine who swim, and then the internet as well. I tried some different things and saw what seemed to help and what didn't. I got better and better, still far from the model of perfection, but I was still improving. By the end of the class I felt pretty confident that if someone were in the pool, drowning, I would be able to jump in and save him.

I'd say that the most memorable part of the whole class was during the final swim test. We swam a timed 300 for a grade. 7:30 and faster was an A, 9:30 and faster was a B, then 11:30 and faster a C, and so on. I really wanted a 9:30, but that was faster than I had ever swum in practice. I practiced and practiced, and the fastest that I could get was 10:37. =( Hoping that I would get an extra adrenaline boost when doing the real thing I still hoped for 9:30, but I realized that it might not happen.

The day came for the final swim test. 24 half-naked guys stood around the pool while Mr. Miller gave some last minute instructions. We got into 3 different waves. After everyone from the first wave finished, the second wave would go, and so on. Knowing that I was the slowest in the class, I got in the 3rd wave, so that I wouldn't hold up the other waves. I helped count laps for the first 2 waves, then when it came my time to go, I could feel my heart pounding. I stepped back, took some deep breaths, said a quick prayer, then readied myself to go. I can't remember whether he used a whistle or just shouted "Go!," but either way, at the signal, I lunged forward and stated my trek. One! Two! Three! Four! Breathe! One! Two! Three! Four! Breathe! I splashed along. I quickly ran short on breath, so I switched to 3 strokes per breath instead of 4. One! Two! Three! Breathe! First 100 yards down.

Now I have to switch to the breast stroke (also known as the frog stroke) for the next 100 yards. Kick! Stroke! Breathe! Kick! Stroke! Breathe! I reach the half way point and my legs feel like jell-o, but I keep going. I reach 200 yards. Now I switch back to the front crawl. One! Two! Three! Breathe! By now, most of the others are done. I finish one length, 75 yards to go. My arms and legs feel like they are about to fall off, but I keep going. One! Two! Three! Breathe! By the time I finish my second length everyone else is done. 50 yards to go. I stop for a couple seconds to try and catch my breath. I hear Lance Souza, my lap counter, encouraging me to keep going. The rest of the guys join in the shouting.

I push off from the wall to finish my last 50 yards. One! Two! Three! Breathe! My lunges have an intense craving for more oxygen. Gasping for breath, I switch to 2 strokes per breath. One! Two! Breathe! One Two! Breathe! One! Two! Breathe! Every muscle in my body aches, begging me to stop. I reach the other end of the pool. Need. More. Oxygen. Says my body. I take 3 deep breaths then push off to finish my last 25 yards. One! Two! Breathe! One! Two! Breathe! Hand after hand, leg after leg, pushing and kicking with all my might. Gasping for breath, I press towards the mark. Half way there! One! Two! Gasp! One! Two! Gasp! I catch a glimpse of the guys cheering me on. All 24 of them standing there watching me press on. I've got to keep going. Hand over hand. I can see the end. Almost there! I give my final kick and reach forward. My hand makes contact with the wall. I grab hold of it and pull my head out of the water and gasp for the sweet oxygen that I have been so deprived of. All the guys cheer. I remain there in the water, holding on to the side of the pool not by choice, but rather because I lack the strength to even pull my body out of the water. But I had finished.

Mr. Miller dismissed the guys and after I minute or two I had regained the strength to pull my bone weary, muscle sore body out of the water. I then sat on the edge of the pool for probably a whole minute before standing up. While sitting there, Mr. Miller informed me of my finishing time, 9 minutes, 52 seconds. Not the 9:30 I had hoped for, but still considerably faster than I had ever swum it before. And considering how I was doing only a couple months before, a tremendous success.

Way back on our second day of class we had a swimming test (not graded) just to see where everyone was coming from. I was far and away the slowest in the class coming in at 20 minutes or so. Other's times were anywhere from 5 to 12 minute. By the midterm swim test I had improved quite a bit, making my time an almost decent 12:31 min:sec. And now, for the final 9:52. I would consider that a success. I really can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! Sitting back in my room I thought back to the many times I was in the pool, standing there in the shallow end, practicing inhaling and exhaling, feeling frustrated, and praying to God. "Lord, I thought that this was Your will for me, but I'm just not getting it. I know that You want me to work at camp as a counselor this summer, but I'm just not getting this swimming thing down. Why? Why isn't this working? Lord, help me. Lord, I need You." He did allow me to get it though. Slowly, but He did. And through it He taught me patience and endurance.

I now knew by experience, that the words of James 1:2-3 (NASB) are true.
2Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
3knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

At the time I wasn't considering it joy to be struggling so much with swimming. But now, looking back, I do. I see that the Lord was doing a work in me and for that I am very, very thankful, and I rejoice and praise Him for it. Praise be to God!

Tim

P.S. Now that I've been able to conquer my Hydrophobia, I'm going to work on my Consecotaleophobia, Venustraphobia, and Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. =P

*Quick disclaimer: None of the pictures here were taken by me, or any they of me, I just found them on the internet to break up an otherwise aesthetically lacking post. =)