For the last five weeks, my grandson has been having frequent episodes of what appears, at first glance, to be a seizure disorder; related, perhaps, to his Aspergers Syndrome. He has had several of these blackout 'seizures' over the last four years, but not all in a short period of time as now.
All his tests come back normal, which is frustrating to his mother, as well as to Grandson. Frustrating and frightening. He can feel these episodes coming on, is helpless to control them, and knows he is going to pass out. His fright creates anxiety, which adds to whatever mechanism is causing him to go into these 'seizures.' He does not have epilepsy, so I hesitate to refer to these loss of consciousness episodes as seizures, but I don't know how else to describe them.
His inability to control or avoid these events is a cause of great worry and sadness for us all. At one point or another, every one of us who know him has considered that he might be faking them for the attention we give him. However, that is not the case. We are left to solve a puzzle none of us seem able to put together.
Enter Hugh Laurie, as Dr. Gregory House of the television program titled House. I watch that program, a week after it airs, on my computer. Today, the episode is about a young boxer who loses fights. House had a bet riding on him, and lost when the boxer hit the mat and was counted out. House decided the young man had thrown the fight, confronted him with that, but discovered the boxer suffers from a disorder called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a heart disease in which an extra electrical circuit in the heart causes, among other things, tachycardia, shortness of breath, chest tightness or pain, and fainting. These are among the symptoms Grandson has when his 'seizures' come on.
Now we have a piece to the puzzle. It might not be the right piece for Grandson's puzzle, but in order to get to the right answer, all the wrong ones have to be eliminated first.
Who says television is a total wasteland?
