Ted Kennedy: The Mistaken Connotation of Seizure

I was struck yesterday while watching the developing story of Senator Ted Kennedy´s emergency rush to the hospital how seizures can be mistaken for other physical symptoms.

In the beginning of the report on CNN, they were reporting ´stroke-like´ symptoms.

Stroke is actually what I thought I was having the day I had the seizure that led to my brain tumor diagnosis August 21, 2007.

After my initial emergency room visit, I was still questioning the fact that I had had a seizure even though 2 ER doctors, and a renowned neurosurgeon had told me so.

Why? Because I had a mistaken connotation about what a seizure truly is. My image was the writhing person on the ground. People rushing to help them -epilepsy, the list goes on.

Today, I know that I experienced a simple partial seizure.

According to the Epilepsy Foundation this is the actual representation of a simple partial seizure," People who have simple partial seizures do not lose consciousness during the seizure. However, some people, although fully aware of what´s going on, find they can´t speak or move until the seizure is over. They remain awake and aware throughout. Sometimes they can talk quite normally to other people during the seizure. And they can usually remember exactly what happened to them while it was going on."

This was the type of seizure I had had. As I looked back in time, I realized I had probably had several of these over the years. After all, the tumor had been there for a decade, I was told.

This may or may not be the type of seizures that Kennedy had. It is also a known fact that many seizures can stand alone. That is, they may be singular incidents. Occurring once, and never again.

It will take a couple days for a battery of tests to be performed before it is known what has caused this incident for Ted Kennedy. In my case, they initially did a CT Scan where they found the abnormality. They then followed up with a contrasted MRI. This is when they found the tumor.

No matter what the diagnosis, however, a positive outcome is out there. My brain tumor was a benign meningioma located in the left occipital lobe. I underwent brain surgery last year on October 24, 2007, and have now returned to "as normal as I will ever be"

Seizures should never be discounted.