N3RDs For A Cure

Becky stares at me blankly. She is now coherent enough to recognize that I’m fully dressed, my eyes are puffy from sobbing like a motherless child, and she feels a wetness under her that tells her she’s wet the bed.

“What?”

I try again. This is the second time we’ve had this conversation – the first time, she fell back asleep immediately.

“You’ve had a seizure.”

“Are you serious?”

I can’t even answer because I’m fighting back tears, so I merely nod my head. I take a moment to blow my nose and regain my composure and start again.

“While you were sleeping, you slipped into a seizure. I woke up to you thrashing and making noise. I’ve called your mom and the doctor. We’re going to take you to the hospital.”

We’re okay, I tell myself. It was a seizure, and it was scary, but it’s over now, right? No harm done?

And then she looks at me with fear in her eyes. “You’re going to think this is dumb… but what day is it?”

The part of me that was in control throws up his hands and the tears start flowing.

An Ordinary Day

Yesterday was nothing extraordinary. We did the N3RDCast till about 4pm, and then I set to work on unclogging our kitchen drain. I spent about five hours of very ineffective work on it, completely dismembering large swaths of our plumbing to try and get to the clog. While not exactly fun, it still beat doing homework for college (I’m between classes this weekend, yaay!). Then I went to work on the show notes, and that took me till about 2-3am.

Becky said she was tired, and spent most of the day on the couch, dozing. This isn’t unusual for MS: there are some days she’s just completely wiped and can do little more than make it to the couch. But if she was acting somewhat out of the ordinary in a way that would indicate what was about to come, I did not pick up on it. When I came to bed that night, she barely stirred, but again, this is not unusual. She is a heavy sleeper at the best of times, and tough days knock her out even deeper. I read briefly and then did my own crashing.

I awoke to the bed bouncing and a Banshee shrieking in my ear.

Enter The Banshee

Anyone that’s listened to the N3RDCast has heard me talk repeatedly about the Banshee from Darby O’Gill and the Little People, one of my favorite movies. The Banshee – and it’s wail – is a figure that struck my 6-year-old heart with an icicle of terror that has never been matched.

Until now.

The shriek that cut through my unconscious and launched me instantly into full-on wakefulness was the most horrific sound I have ever heard. I tell you in all seriousness: it is a sound that will haunt my dreams for years to come. I can’t even give you an accurate description of what it sounded like, because I have never heard anything like it. All I know is that I shot bolt upright and turned to see my beloved wife on her side with her head thrown back and her mouth as wide as it would go, shrieking in a rapidly rising and falling pitch. When HP Lovecraft used the word “gibbering,” this was the sound in his mind. This was the TRUE sound of the Banshee – the maddening wail that drives men to their knees just from hearing it.

And it was coming from my wife, who – up until a few seconds ago – had been slumbering quietly next to me.

Her eyes were screwed shut but tears were pouring out between the lids. Her hands were clenched into fists and jerking against her torso as her entire body shook.

In some part of my mind, I recognized logically that she was having a seizure. But the wave of terror that crashed over me wiped any sort of rational thinking from my mind. All I knew was the agonized expression on her face and that God-damning wail coming from her lips. I grabbed her shoulder and shook her, yelling her name, asking what was wrong. Her wail continued for twenty or thirty seconds – in my mind, it’s still going on, echoing around my head – before she began gurgling with huge globs of saliva shooting out of her mouth.

At this point, if she had sat up, levitated the bed into the air, spun her head around and declared that my mother sucks cocks in Hell I could not have been more terrified.

Finally, after about an eternity a minute of this, the convulsions faded away until she grew completely still. But that didn’t really calm me down. All I could think was that not just the convulsions were stopping, but all of her functions – breathing, heartbeat – were stopping, too. I grew even more panicked and frantic in my shaking and shouting her name. She responded finally by starting to snore in a manner that was completely normal for her.

Except that her eyes were wide open and unfocused.

I could not rouse her. I agonized over what to do next for a few seconds before calling Becky’s mom, Elaine, who is a registered nurse. I could barely talk to her to explain the situation because my hysteria was catching up to me and I was sobbing with great sucking breaths.

Thankfully, Elaine was much more rational than I and much MUCH more experienced with seizures. She explained that it was not unusual for someone to slip into a deep, deep sleep after a seizure. This eased my fear and allowed me to regain some semblance of self-control and rational thought. Elaine was already leaving for our house as I got off the phone with her, and we agreed that I would call Becky’s neurologist, which I did immediately.

I left a message with his answering service and set about doing a frantic version of morning preparation. I was dressed and ready to go in about .03 seconds, but while I waited for Elaine to arrive or the doctor to call me back I had nothing to do but sit by Becky and wait for her to come around. She often stirred, looking around but seeming completely unaware of me as I repeatedly called her name. Finally she closed her eyes and seemed to fall into a normal sleep.

After about a half hour, she stirred again. She opened her eyes and actually focused on me, and I am able to get a response.

“Baby, you’ve had a seizure.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

And she fell instantly back to sleep.

The Aftermashing

About ten minutes after that, she is awake again, this time a bit more focused. We have the discussion that started this story, and begin discovering the parts of her memory that are missing. While at first she doesn’t remember that it is Easter Sunday, nor that Elaine and her boyfriend were supposed to come up for Easter dinner with us, eventually pieces start to fill in. She is, of course, terrified. From her perspective, she just woke up and I was there, puffy-eyed and hysterical, telling her things that she had absolutely no recollection of. The previous day’s events still linger like a tenuous dream. She is vaguely aware of some of them, but most continue to evade her.

The doctor calls and after a brief explanation of events, he says we need to admit her to the hospital. They need to run a battery of tests on Becky to determine what could have caused the seizure, but he believes it’s simply a flare-up of MS. Still, we make plans to get her admitted and agree to meet later in the day as he makes his rounds.

Elaine arrives and we get Becky cleaned up and pack a bag for the hospital. We’re old pros at this by now, so we know what to bring (like Becky’s Nintendo DS, obviously). Then we make the trip to hospital and undergo a surprisingly easy check-in at the ER. Being early on a holiday, I guess we miss the rush. The ER doctor runs a CAT scan but finds nothing and is fully prepared to discharge her. I, in turn, explain that her doctor wants her admitted, and that any subsequent talk of discharge will result in the discharge of my bladder into his face.

Okay, okay – I’m a wuss, we all know that. But I do explain – a bit insistently – that her doctor wants her admitted, and I am not budging on that issue. If there’s one thing that 300-pound men do, it’s not budging.

The ER doctor gets a hold of the neurologist and things are worked out. Becky is admitted – not just to the hospital, and not just to the neurology ward, but to the BRAND NEW neurology ward! With private rooms that are HUGE and feature a PRIVATE SHOWER! Luxury of luxuries! I make the requisite phone calls to family and shoot a text to some friends to start the grapevine.

It’s a wonderful change of pace for our usual hospital experiences and a welcome relief. I slide a chair up against her bed, lower the “seizure-padded” railing, and we entwine our hands and snuggle against each other as best we can. We stay like that for a while, watching the Karate Kid on TV (quality programming!). As Daniel-san enters the tourney, Becky’s neurologist shows up and we turn our attention to him (with apologies to Daniel-san and his magnificent Crane Kick).

The first tests are back and they look positive. The CAT scan is unchanged from the last one she had a few years ago, so we can take comfort in that. They’re going to do an MRI, which will give us a much better image of what is going on in her brain. There is a slightly elevated white blood cell count, which is expected with seizures, but no other signs of infection or anything Really Bad (TM) going on. We talk about possible causes and are overall encouraged – oftentimes people with MS just have seizures. There’s no rhyme nor reason to it (other than the war being waged in their nervous system by their own body), so this is not an extraordinary occurrence that we should really be overly concerned about.

Which is easy for him to say, he didn’t wake up to the Banshee.

But the talk is good. We really like her doctor, so it is comforting to talk with him and he definitely makes us feel better. It’s a comforting feeling that lasts the rest of the night, even consoling me when I have to say farewell to my beautiful wife, looking sad and scared in the hospital bed. We kiss and hug, and she tells me good luck with my writing (because she knows the only way I can deal with my agony is writing). The fear is still there, but the doctor’s pep talk keeps me going.

Right up until it’s time for me to go home and face the bedroom by myself.

The Scene of the Slime

Elaine spent a good chunk of the day cleaning our house because she’s awesome like that. I know our sheets and pillowcases have been washed and will now smell of a spring breeze.

But I’ve been home for three hours and still can’t bring myself to go into the bedroom.

It’s not that anything particularly gross happened. I’ve dealt with my share of bodily fluids in the past (my share, your share, and YOUR share). That isn’t what is bothering me. What’s bothering me is the knowledge that we’ve just entered a new chapter in our life. After all my stupid, stupid bragging about how great things were going, MS heard me and threw us a curve ball. A curve ball that was actually a grenade.

When Becky was in the throes of her seizure, so many terrible things were flashing through my mind – things so terrible I can’t even face them to write them down now. That fraction of time that was MAYBE two or three minutes, tops. But it created more terror than the combination of the past seven years of relapses, hospital visits, loss of mobility, loss of bladder/bowel control, and the loss of dignity.

Every facade of confidence, every hope, every dream, every single prayer I’ve held in my heart was smashed in one brief flash.

And yet here I am. Despite my fears, despite the inevitable nightmares, I’m going to bed tonight. I may not sleep soundly (or at all), but I’m going. And then I will get up tomorrow, I’ll march into that hospital, and I will do everything in my power to cheer up that beautiful woman and bring a smile to her face.

Why?

Because at the height of terror, when that horrific wail escaped from my wife and turned the blood in my veins to ice and drove any rational thought from my brain, I reached for her.

As scared as I might be now, as heavy as my heart feels, as terrible as the future could be – there is no force on this Earth (or beyond) that will ever stop me from reaching for my beloved.

So you want to talk about creating a hero? How about “Kicks’ Banshee’s Ass Man.” Because as terrified as I am, as hard as this has been, as tough as it’s going to be to still coordinate things for the Walk MS, this isn’t even going to slow us down.

Walk on, friends.

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Update: Tuesday Mach 25th, 9am: Becky is back home. After a healthy serving of ice cream and Xbox, she spent the night sleeping soundly. I don’t want to jinx anything, but she seems to be doing fine. Still some memory issues, but she’s getting better every day.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.