Are they Filed under "C"?

I can remember when these things started--1967. The reason I can remember the year is because that's the year the Buckinghams had the hit "Kind of a Drag". I had so many during that year, that it got to the point where just hearing this song would trigger multiples. I'd have them over and over again until I got sick to my stomach.

Stress or excitement would also trigger them. In high school, if our basketball team game was playing a really intense game, I'd have them until I had to leave the gym. (Today I can't imagine ever being that excited about any sporting event!)

How could I even begin to tell someone about these things? This time was at the height of LSD popularity, and if I told someone I was having "visions", I know they would've sent me away somewhere--especially if I told them what the visions were about. Heck, my dad thought I was on drugs when he found Midol in my bedroom...what would he think if I had told him I was spacing out and these hallucinations were playing in my head? I would've been in rehab for sure. I would've at least been stuck in my room for the duration of my teenage years.

Even as a really young kid, I never liked cartoons. Some of them I even hated. Evidently there is a special place in my brain where I file "cartoons I especially hate"...and that's where these electric currents would hit every time. When one of these spells would get ready to hit, I knew it was coming. I'd first have a sense of deja vu--like I've been here before--done this before. Then it would start rolling over me like a wave.

My vision would dim, and so would the environment around me. I could no longer respond to the world around me. The electricity would hit in that same place in my brain, but the "cartoon I especially hate" would vary. The selected cartoon would play in my head, just like I was watching it on TV. They even had sound. Then the cartoon would fade. My vision would return to normal and I could respond to people again. I don't know how long these things would last, but sometimes they'd come one right after another.

I had no idea of what transpired around me during these spells, and I couldn't even remember what cartoon was playing in my head. I kept this secret for many years, and no one ever suspected I had a problem--that is, until my senior English class. We loved our teacher, Mr. Bridges. But he had a rule. If you got caught daydreaming in class, your grade would get knocked down.

We were in the top English class. We always made straight A's in English. But coming out of that cartoon spell one day, I saw Mr. Bridges looking at me. Then he bent down and wrote something in his log book. I knew I'd been caught, but I wasn't daydreaming and I couldn't help it. Sure enough, I got an A- on that grading period. I couldn't tell Mr. Bridges either. I kept my secret for ten years.

When I turned about 20 or so, I quit having these spells. I had my first baby, and things were going fine. Then when my son was about 18 months old, they came back. But this time I was pretty sure doctors wouldn't accuse me of tripping on LSD. My dad no longer suspected me of using Midol as a recreational drug. I was referred to a neurologist and had an EEG. The diagnosis came back in a week or so. I had psychomotor epilepsy.

I was prescribed Dilantin and sent home. The Dilantin made me sleepy and lazy, but the worst side effect was that my gums grew down to the bottom of my teeth! I quit the Dilantin cold turkey, which put me into more seizures just from coming off the medicine. I didn't care. The side effects of the medicine were worse than the seizures. Once I adjusted to going off of the Dilantin, the seizures never returned. That's been over 32 years ago. In fact, it's been so long that I had forgotten all about my former epilepsy until I was watching "Mystery Diagnosis" tonight. (By the way, if you have epilepsy, DO NOT attempt taking yourself off of your medication.)

A woman on tonight's episode had many of the same symptoms that I had...well, minus the cartoons. I "told" the doctors on her case that she has epilepsy. Nobody took this woman seriously--until after 42 years when she was sent to a second neurologist. She ended up having one of her temporal lobes removed and that fixed the problem.

That seems a bit extreme, but it had gotten to the point where she was having wrecks during her seizures. Luckily, I never had any seizures while driving. Oh, come to find out, the deja vu is actually an "aura", much like someone getting a migraine has.

By the way, the cartoons depicted in that last graphic really are the "cartoons I especially hate"!