We have not seen any seizures since February, we got confirmation that Wyatt was seizure-free in March and at the end of the coming week, we are getting another EEG to hopefully see that there is still no seizure activity and also that the suspicious discharges in the brain are gone.  They were not classified as seizures but they seemed to be a shadow of a memory of how the brain had had seizures.  If those are gone, we are closer to breathing easy.  Waiting is hard.

I have had a couple of scares thinking I saw Wyatt have an old “head-bob” (his type of seizure was called a head drop).  He swears I was wrong.

In the meanwhile, May and June were very hard months for Wyatt.  He started to complain that he hated school which he usually loved, and his teacher reported that he was no longer the sweet, enthusiastic boy that he had been all year.  He started to look for excuses to leave the classroom several times a day.  He begged to stay home and he often ended up at the nurse with a phantom disease so he could be picked up.

I suspected the remaining medication he was on. The neurologist said he was probably having trouble adjusting to ‘normal’ life. There was less help, more expected of him in school and he was no longer being watched over like he was in danger of hitting his head at every turn.  He missed the attention and was now choosing to get it by acting out.  That did make sense.

As the deadline for deciding what grade Wyatt should be in next year grew near, I asked for a full re-evaluation.  He had been evaluated for special education when he was fully having seizures. I wanted to know what his abilities were now, without seizures.  As it turned out, in most areas, he had grown a lot but in some, he had lost function.  I felt sick when I was told.

I faxed a twenty-four page report to the neurologist. Navigating the phone system in his office was enough to tear my hair out much less making sure he received and actually read the bulk of the report. The four days it took to make this happen were upsetting and utterly frustrating.

The outcome: reduce his meds.  I didn’t know if I should yell “Hurray!” or “DUH!!!!”.  I did both and got Wyatt off 1/3 of his dose.  Within a week to ten days, happy Wyatt was back and his crying about everything has lessened.  It also coincided with the end of school so I am not totally certain that it was the drug reduction alone that did it.  He is in summer school and loving it, so I do lean towards the drug-reduction being a big factor.

So, now I wait.  I will have the EEG but no official results meeting until September.  I am waiting just a couple of more days to tell the doctor that we reduced the meds almost four weeks ago and ask for the next step in the reduction.  Then I wait for that to take effect.  School will start just after we have all the results.  Wyatt will repeat second grade which I feel is for the best, but I am dreading the first day when he really gets what that means.  His friends in another class and him with the ‘babies’ from last year’s first grade, as he calls them.

One day at a time……that makes it easier to wait.

The last few weeks have been intense.  My kids are out of school which is a relief from the daily monitoring of progress but is chaos on my schedule.  My self-employed husband and I go from a seven-hour work day to squeezing in two daytime hours of focused productivity.  On top of that, add throwing three birthday parties this summer (the twins get half-birthday parties since their birthdays fall during Christmas week and older boy’s actual b-day is in summer) organizing our summer getaway, trying to work out when I dropped a suitcase on my foot two weeks ago (it still looks like an eggplant) AND cooking up the most exciting business offerings I’ve done in years. (more to come)

With all that said, the recent weeks have also been S-A-W-E-E-T as I have had a chance to relive my own history and a friend’s as well.

My good bud and radio partner, DJ Mitsch, just published her book, “Mystic Grits”, which is about her life growing up in the deep south and her success as a business mystic.  She has had magical experiences during her journey that span from sound business moves to listening to the wisdom of her childhood Ouija board to the sighting of angels.  By reading her story, which was shared through journal entries and her own commentary on her life, I was transported to a wonderful place where my friend’s history made clear to me why she is who she is today. I’d always loved her but knowing her story made me appreciate her even more.

Just this past weekend, I got to relive part of my history by visiting with folks who I knew from Boston University’s Stage Troupe. We had not all been together in 24 years! ( I can’t be that old!)  What a treat to see these wonderful people and learn how their lives have evolved.  We laughed so hard retelling stories of our escapades in college and looking at old pictures. Besides reminiscing, however, there was great meaning in the visit for me.

The people who gathered were so dear.  They were part of an important time in my life.  We also all shared a love and passion for theatre although we were not theatre majors.  That passion lives on as a common thread among us today .These are the people that knew me before I had any career to speak of and being with them as we reveled in each others’ successes and struggles was so natural. There was no posturing from anyone–anything we did was an accomplishment compared to our student selves so it was fun to just be in the stories.  We had no expectations of each other (I think) so the evening went on as if twenty four years ago was yesterday.  Yet, we listened to each other with great interest, drinking up every detail. It’s not everyday that a group of people show that kind of rapt attention.  Everyone’s love and respect for each other had matured with us and it was an unusual experience that I still don’t have all the words to describe.

I suppose it’s  understandable why many people choose to bury their past even if they’ve worked hard to triumph against it. There is really nothing wrong with that, but maybe it is a spiritual milestone when you can make peace with both the past and the present and integrate them as the seamless, delicate path to the wonderous life that is yours. We all have our stories and they are all worth sharing.

Both my friend DJ and I were a bit apprehensive about putting out such personally revealing books this year, but as I heard Jill Bolte Taylor explain in a video about preparing for her TED speech, “the fruit is out on the limb”.  Jill went out on a limb in her 18 minute TED talk and it has been an internet hit ever since.  DJ and I hope that by reaching out on a limb, we will reap fruit as well.  We have already heard from so many folks about how the books have given them courage or helped them heal or has moved them in some way. By revisting our history we helped the present make sense.

That’s what makes it a meaningful life.

DJ and I will be speaking together in Cary, NC, on July 23rd

We Americans love FREE stuff.  Contests, raffles, give-aways, downloads, videos, whatever we can get our hands on for FREE.  Oh, I forgot FREE FOOD.  Your life is truly in danger if you get in the way of someone on their way to the free food table.  We go nuts for FREE stuff.

What I find fascinating is that as much as we love something to be free to us, there are not many of us who ARE free.  What I mean is that so many of us are still trapped by our own thinking or our own problems. Part of it is our lifestyle. We move quickly and we are very future-focused, so we don’t devote as much time as we could to being proactive about personal growth.  Most people don’t meditate, go to therapy, or spend any time on a daily basis to make progress with their own growth.  We often think that just barreling through to the next action or goal will keep the problems at bay.  It might, temporarily, but the outcome of delaying dealing with underlying problems is that they will hit as a tsunami rather than a mere storm when they erupt.

In the name of this Independence Day, decide what you need to be free from.  Decide to get support to handle it whether it’s finances, emotions, a weak skill or a bad habit.  What no longer serves what you are up to?

There are brave young men and women fighting for our freedom now so we can have the luxury of reading this blog and engaging in what it suggests.  Do them right by BEING FREE!