5-Hour EEG
As part of my epilepsy journey, I requested a follow-up EEG test last July because I was experiencing some concerning symptoms. I was forgetting words while speaking1, and occasionally I can't understand what people are saying (and in some cases even myself).2 I'm not sure if these are small seizures3, or side effects of my medication, or something else entirely.
So a 5-hour EEG test was scheduled. Technically the test was 4 hours - the extra hour was to get all the wires / leads pasted onto my head. There were two tests that were to be completed during the 4-hour scan: a deep breathing exercise, and a strobe light test. However they told me that they had enough data from the scan that they didn't need to do that. I'm not sure what that means.
The 4 hours passed by quickly. I brought a lot of things to do - a couple of books to read, my phone (for podcasts), and an iPad. I didn't end up using the iPad, because I got a few chapters in of one book. The second book was a beginner's guide to photography and I consulted the part about image enhancement with software, so I played around with some photos on my phone with the free version of Lightroom. One of the photos I touched up was a selfie I took with all the wires in, which was a bit overexposed.4
I was also allowed to sleep, so I put in some headphones (surprisingly I was allowed to use Bluetooth earbuds), started a podcast, and took a nap. I felt like I got enough rest because I was alert when I sat back up, but according to the techs watching the scans I was only "drowsy" and didn't fall completely asleep.
Other than that, the scan was rather unremarkable. My wife came with me and she brought her own stuff - she didn't take the day off like I did, so had her work laptop to run a meeting and take care of a few emails. I joked that I could have done the same but I very much don't mind taking time off work.
Now all that's left is for an MRI to be scheduled. I've been waiting since July. I'm probably near the bottom of the wait list since this is a follow-up scan and not super pressing. I'm guessing at that, since I don't really know how the wait list thing works for MRIs. I do recall not waiting very long for my previous two scans, but it's possible there just weren't many people waiting for one at the time.
The results from the EEG should be available in around two weeks' time. I don't know if I'll be able to understand the test results without my neurologist interpreting them to me but I'm interested to see what the results say.
The best way I can think of to explain it is to compare it to speaking another language and not being able to find the word you're looking for in that language. Most commonly the words I forget are adjectives or common nouns. I'll remember them much later.↩
I've told people if I ask them to repeat something more than a few times, it's likely because I can hear what they're saying but my brain isn't processing it - so I don't understand what they're saying and it takes me a few tries. On rarer occasions I will hear myself speak and not register what it is I'm saying - like my brain is working in separate pieces I guess.↩
Sometimes known as focal aware seizures.↩
I thought I did a pretty good job with it. I would have included it in this post but was having trouble transferring it to an image hosting service, so you'll just have to take my word for it.↩