Brainstorm by Suzanne O'Sullivan

Author:Suzanne O'Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2018-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

7

RAY

The Brain is deeper than the sea.

—Emily Dickinson, “The Brain—is wider than the Sky” (c.1862)

Ray and I were sitting side by side in the video telemetry office where the technicians and I watch the videos of people having seizures. Ray had been an inpatient in the monitoring unit for five days. It was his lucky week – he had three seizures in that short time. We were both really pleased. Ray’s seizures had never really improved with medication. Some tablets made him a little better but none made any really useful difference. We needed to see his seizures to figure out if there was another way forward for him.

“I’m not sure I want to watch this,” Ray said.

“You don’t have to. The video is not going anywhere. It’ll be here tomorrow. Take a bit longer to think about it.”

I video monitor at least six people a week. Yet I can count on one hand those who have asked to see their own video. I’ve never fully understood this. Most people with seizures only know what happens through the accounts of their families. Those who do watch often seem very embarrassed by what they see. They apologize and explain. A seizure is an involuntary act. It is a result of faulty wiring. It’s not the responsibility of the owner. That people remain so awkward in the face of their own seizures suggests that even they cannot always separate the person they are from their disease.

Ray had heard his own seizures described a hundred times. He had requested to see what we had recorded, but he was nervous.

“Are they bad?” he asked me.

“I don’t think you’ll see anything you’re not expecting,” I told him.

“I’m worried about the look in my eyes when they happen.”

“Honestly, other than what you already know about your seizures there is nothing else to see. I don’t think you’ll find them too hard to watch.”

Ray had had epilepsy for half his life. Two or three times most weeks he lost consciousness for two or three minutes. Less than ten minutes a week in total. It sounds like such a small amount of lost time but it was enough to alter the course of his whole life.

“Go ahead,” Ray said and I turned on the screen.

“Tell me how you know that the seizure is starting,” I asked as we scrolled through the video looking for the exact moment that this seizure began.

“I’ve spent years trying to figure out how to explain it. The best I can do is to say it starts with this beautiful feeling. Beautiful but strange. I’m in a lovely, lovely place. Like I’m on a cloud looking down at everybody else.”

Ray had thought a lot about it. I thought his description was a clear and generous account of something awful.

“When I have a seizure I usually ask people around me if they’re okay,” Ray told me. “I think that I feel so well that it makes me worry about other people. I know they can never feel as good as I do.

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