I Have It, But It Doesn't Have Me!

When I stopped over at my parent's house last weekend, my extremely literate family handed me the front page of the Wall Street Journal. On the front page was an article talking about how the Epilepsy Foundation, with support from big drug companies, is making laws about doctor control over prescribing brand name drugs.



Now, I read The Truth about Drug Companies, and I know for a fact that generics are the same chemically as brand name counterparts. The only difference is the amount of advertising and various donations and gifts (i.e. bribes) that Big Pharma churns out every year.

Now since my last seizures, in May, I decided I should finally accept my condition, so as to get over it. I signed up for an account on the Epilepsy Foundation and found a group on Facebook that provide support. It's helped me realize I have it pretty good, all things considered. I even picked up Epileptic by David B., a graphic novel (i.e. comic book) that conveys epilepsy in a way no one has before or since. The images of epilepsy as a ghost and a series of mountains to climb both resonate with me.



I even found a blog entitled Cookie Wonton, through it's sending of visitors to my site, written by a mom talking about raising two kids with epilepsy. It's an interesting perspective and has a fresh tone, I'm lucky to have found it.

The WSJ article struck a nerve though. Personally, I feel like neurologists should be able to prescribe whatever. No one should be able to alter it. So I like the move. My doctor was clearly irritated by the quick swap Walgreen's made, switching me to a generic. But he acknowledged, like the doctors in the article, that essentially, chemically, there is no difference in the drugs. It's an interesting topic, and I'm sorry if I'm boring anyone about this, but when something is like a monkey on your back you can't help but try to rationalize it.

Read my post at the Foundation here and my post on the Facebook group here.

Vampire Blues

So I should probably update my handful of readers on what happened to me last week. If you're feeling squeamish you should probably NOT read this, as it was traumatic enough to keep me away from my apartment for a week.

Basically, I woke up at 6 am a little stressed about things, a little bored with my job. You know, the usual deep thoughts you try to block out of your head. Well, before I could change my thought process, it was 6 or 7 at night and people were all in my room giving me medicine.

My back hurt like hell from twisting or falling, my teeth were a little cracked from falling or biting too hard, and my tongue was chewed to the point where I was on top of a bloody, puke covered pillowcase.

I thought I was pretty healthy before this, and before the last one I was even convinced I was somehow healing (see this). So it was a pretty big bummer, physical annoyances aside. Now I'm scheduled in to have my teeth fixed, my tongue is almost done itching as it regrows, and even my back might be ready for the co-ed soccer game on Sunday.



I decided to take a few positives from this, and one is that I need to be more social, I need to get out and maybe even consider a career change eventually. I lined up the GRE a couple Fridays from now. And I even decided that I don't have epilepsy that bad... so I jumped on the Epilepsy Foundation's website and figured maybe I could have something to offer people, and in the process maybe get something out of it myself.

One other thing- I finally got around to uploading the video of my "typical" seizure on to YouTube. So, if you're wondering, 0:17 - 0:11 is when it occurs, and I just keep looping through consciousness/unconsciousness. That is what wasn't treated with a little bottle of liquid last week. It evolved into something more major, and my memory is then wiped clean.