I am Excellent!!

  

 
This is my brother in-law, Robert who is excellent all of the time. By looking at this picture could you tell he has had fourteen (14) seizures in just over an hour this morning and that is after giving him the max daily dosage of his anti-seizure medication, Ativan. “Mobile-friendly – Ativan is a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety disorders or anxiety associated with depression.” Today is not normal, the normal is we go all morning with maybe one seizure. In the tracking of Robert’s seizures, blood pressure, pulse, temperature, blood oxygen and blood pressure and then reading the logs we have noticed that Robert tends to have a high number of seizures every two weeks and then he’s back to normal.  When he does have seizures his head will drop down and then he will look to his right. His seizures usually last 45-70 seconds and then he will have a recovery period of about 30 seconds. When he’s coming out of it we will ask him question such as,

• How are you doing?
• Do you remember your name?
• Do you know your sisters name?
• Whats her/his name? 
• Etc.

Today after one seizure I asked if he knew my name and he responded with Jeff and of course you don’t argue with him, he’s not sure what’s, what, yet so I moved onto other questions . When I asked a second time if he knew me, he said I was Ken. I asked several other questions to which he responded, “Of course Richard” with a big smile. He then asked me, “Did I get it right the first time? Referring to my name. Just since I started writing this, he has had five more seizures to which we will have to call his neurologist to keep him in the loop of things and to see how he wants us to proceed.  

How does he stay so, excellent after numerous brain surgeries, seizures daily and clusters of seizures every two weeks?  It’s through his faith in God and the love and support of those around him and in his life.  Robert just proves that even though your having a crappy day, it can still be excellent.  It’s all a matter of how you look at it. 

Have an excellent day!