Seizures Are Back

Yesterday I had a simple partial seizure. The last time I had a one it was followed about four hours later by a full blown tonic seizure¹, which is no fun². But this time it was just followed later by two less severe simple partial ones. This morning between going to the surgery for an appointment and getting to see my GP I had two more, again less severe.

Anyway the good news is that, having given me the usual neurological check over he doesn't think anything has changed in my brain (i.e. it's still as broken as before!) and he thinks it's probably down to some combination of overwork, poor sleep and/or random chance. He doesn't think it's worth changing my meds as he thinks it will stop on its own if I take it easy.

The bad news, and this is bad news, is that I now can't drive for a year and so I've just posted my licence back to the DVLA.

The good news, such as it is, is that as I'm now in that situation (unable to drive through epilepsy) it means I am entitled to free off peak local bus travel throughout England (but not Wales or Scotland sadly)³. So I got my doctor to fill in the form for me while I was there, we nipped into Tesco for a passport photo and I've posted off my application form for that.

1. A tonic seizure is the first half of a more common tonic-clonic seizure, so you go stiff (the "tonic" phase) but you don't then have convulsions (the "clonic" phase).
2. Well, no fun for the spectators at least, for me it's a cakewalk as I don't remember a thing about it and, unlike a tonic-clonic, I tend to be injury free - just a bit dazed and confused for a while.
3. This is in addition to my Disabled Rail Card which already gives me (and my "carer") one third off all train tickets, even at peak times - there are some advantages to this crap.