So we're looking forward to him getting out of the hospital and back to doing all those things again. He has been admitted to the neuro IMC for seizure testing / observation.
He woke up this morning feeling fine but then tried to turn on a lamp and noticed loss of dexterity to his left hand and overall feeling off balance. I went right over and noticed he was presenting very similarly to his episode last April, however the symptoms weren't as bad this time. He had a very mild weakness to the left hand, a bit of a left arm drift, more of a left visual field cut than normal (he still has some residual left visual neglect from April), an unsteady gait, and stated he was seeing an aura of colored lights. No slurred speech or facial drooping, and it did not affect his lower extremities.
By the time we got to the hospital the colored lights aura had disappeared and he was getting stronger in his left hand. He had a CT scan, which was negative. He had basic bloodwork done, which was all fine. He had an MRI, which is unchanged from his last MRI from 2 months ago.
Then after the MRI he had one of the most unique seizures I've ever seen, it was focal to his left abdominal area. It was painful and at first looked like cramping, but then there were very clear and obvious fasciculations to his abdominal area. It sort of looked like an alien was doing a very weird rhythmic twitchy tap dance inside. He had a couple episodes of this while a few of us were in the room trying to determine what was going on and I said "Those look like seizures!!". Sure enough it spread down his leg and up his arm. We gave him some Ativan, which he immediately responded to and the seizures stopped and *knock on wood* hasn't had any seizures since then. Afterwards he told me during the seizure he saw the colored light aura, which is also consistent with a seizure. The neuro team came to see him afterwards and I asked him if abdominal seizures are very common, because I've heard of them but never seen one. Nope, yet again my dad has something "very rare". Go figure, we always knew he was one in a million!
In the past couple months we had been decreasing his anti-seizure medication (Keppra) because he hadn't had any seizure activity in so long. It was a reasonable thing to try. However it looks like he still has a lower seizure threshold and that he needs the higher dose to keep things at bay. I've been reading a lot too about how lower barometric pressure can affect people, how it can precipitate migraines, headaches, and even seizures. So it's curious that right when Hurricane Sandy came whipping through with its low barometric pressure, that's when his neurons started acting up. Interesting.
He had an EEG and a CT angiogram (to look at his vessels) as well but we don't know those results yet. In the morning he'll get some more bloodwork to look at his thyroid function and inflammation markers.
His team thinks that this is simply a matter of some breakthrough seizures that will be controlled with a medication change. They think the left-sided weakness is all related to that. I like that, it's an easy problem with an easy fix! However, they have to keep him for a few days for observation, just to cover all bases. Of course my dad is not thrilled to be in the hospital, he wants to sleep in his own bed and not be hooked up to monitor cords and wires. He hates missing the gym and getting to drive around in his truck. But otherwise he's doing ok. We'll weather this storm and get right back in the swing of things. I'm hoping for a discharge at the end of the week.
