My First Seizure

Although I had shown signs of having a febrile seizure when I was a toddler, little did we know there would be more ahead of us. During February of 1991 Bredt had been on the Delco traveling soccer team that was heading to Phoenix, Arizona for a tournament. As we were headed to the hotel, we had stopped at a Utotem (like a Wawa) for snacks. All of us were in the store when suddenly I stopped and just stood there staring. My body looked like I could lose my balance, but luckily I was next to Bredt. So Bredt held onto me so I would not fall. At this time, there were no other signs of anything wrong. My parents had no clue that this was the first sign of a seizure. Later that same day when we got to our hotel room the same thing had happened.

My parents simply thought that perhaps it was an ear infection since I was prone to them, knowing that ear infections can affect a persons balance. So as soon as we got home to Pennsylvania my parents made an appointment for me to see the pediatrician.  While my mom had scheduled the doctor’s appointment, I went back to school.

At this time, I was in Kindergarten, so my mom let my teacher know that I was showing signs of having difficulty keeping my balance and staring into space. She had also let her know that she had scheduled an appointment with the doctor. That same week I went back to school, the teacher had noticed that what my parents described to her were similar events to what had happened when we were in Arizona.

Later that week as my mom and I sat waiting in the pediatrician’s office, the doctors said that I suffered an atonic seizure accompanied by rapid eye blinking. The doctor suggested getting an EEG (Electroencephalography). The scan was obtained on March 5, 1991, which demonstrated an abnormal EEG because of focal left occipital and posterior temporal sharp waves, spikes and slow waves of high voltage through the tracing. Due to the abnormal waves and spikes that showed up, this led to getting a CT Scan (Computed Tomograhy Scan).

 On March 7, 1991, a CT scan was done, and results showed that there was a large cystic lesion in the left temporal fossa, which replaced most of the left temporal lobe.  It could not be determined whether it was a porencephalic cyst or an arachnoid cyst.  At the time, I was on no medications, but from the testing and what my parents described my pediatrician, they suggested that we see a neurologist.