I think the effects of the Gamma Knife surgery are really beginning to come to the surface now.  You might recall from the past (review for regular readers) that my brain tumor is right on the motor strip in the right frontal lobe.  Therefore, the targeted area involved the motor strip and seizures was one of the likely effects of this type of procedure.  My surgeon told me that they would likely become more frequent and increase in frequency.  When you think about it, I received 60Gy (Gy is pronounced “grey” which is the unit of measurement for radiation) of IMRT radiation over 5 weeks.  Gamma knife was about 24Gy in one shot.  It’s not difficult to understand how this might create some trauma.

I’ve had focal seizures (seizures confined to the left side of my body – typically in my left shoulder and arm) here and there but there seems to be some regularity developing in spite of increasing meds and folding in a new drug.  I’ve only been on the new drug for a little while so I need to give that time but the only way to describe the feeling in my left arm is it feels like there is a seizure right under the surface that could break through at any time.

I’ve had seizures on 4/28, 5/1 and 5/4.  Yesterday was laughable!  We are refinancing our 1st mortgage – hey if you haven’t do it.  It’s a good time!  Anyway, we were getting some final paperwork notarized and sent out in a fedex store and just as everything was laid out, I felt it coming on.  Perfect timing!  We needed to get this stuff out but what am I supposed to do?  I told Rach that I need to take a quick walk.  So I walked down the strip mall where it looked nice and quiet so I could go finish my seizure and return to sign the paperwork!  How lame is that?!  Luckily it was a normal 5 minute deal and Rach had all the signature lines all organized for me.  I was also glad that my oldest son didn’t follow out – he hasn’t seen that side of this and I’d still like to keep it that way.

I need to find out another answer here.  I’ll keep tracking it with log.  I haven’t had to log these since my 1st surgery really but this is when logging is important.  You simply can’t remember details like when it occured, the duration, if you took medication to stop it and any other info you need to document that may be important.

Other than this issue, I’m still feeling good – plenty of energy.  Something is working but I’m concerned mostly about brain swelling and want to avoid steroids which is where they would go if we can’t control it with standard anti-convulsants.  I’ll get it figured out though.

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