alrighty, a description of the video eeg....

well, it's like a regular eeg, only longer and with a camera watching you.

i guess i could offer a few more details. *8-)

first, lemme add a disclaimer...the following is MY experience of having a video eeg at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis - YMMV. (er, that's Your Mileage May Vary for you internet-acronym-challenged types)...i know my experience will be different from others because i was a bit difficult in having this procedure scheduled - my neurologist insisted i have the video eeg done at the hospital attached to his office, Community Hospital, but after having one problem after another getting the thing scheduled and then cancelled because their equipment wasn't working, i told him i wanted it done at St. Vincent. since he's not credentialled at that hospital, a partner in his office (who'd never seen me before) came to visit me in the hospital. had i done it the way my neuro wanted, i would probably seen my regular doctor while i was having my testing done.

so, they told me to show up at the hospital at 6:45 am. i arrived and asked the information desk where i needed to go. they sent me to outpatient registration - weird, i thought, since i was staying IN the hospital for my test, but oh well. i navigate my way to the registration office and they tell me i'm supposed to go to the inpatient registration, which was right next to the information desk i originally started at. so i get there and sit around and wait (why they drilled into my head i HAD to be there at 6:45AM, i don't know) and then finally speak to a woman to get registered. i give her my insurance card and she asks if i've been a patient there before...i tell her no and give her all my pertinent information - address, phone, work info, emergency contacts, blah blah blah...then she tells me that she entered my info into the computer wrong, as an outpatient or some such, so i have to give it to her again. then something else happens during the process and i have to give her all the info _again_...then we find that i actually DO have a record in their system (i'd forgotten that i'd been a patient in that hospital when i had a seizure in my car when driving my brother & sister back to their house) but i'm in there as Lori Southerland and so we have to re-enter everything yet again...alrighty, so we get all my info entered and the clerk tells me they haven't assigned me a bed yet. argh! i've had this damned thing scheduled for WEEKS! i started getting frustrated and banged my head on the table - she asks me if i'm okay, and i tell her i've run into one problem after another trying to get this thing scheduled. she assures me that it's going to be taken care of, that we can go ahead and get ready in the eeg lab.

so, it's off to the eeg lab. i sit around and wait a bit - they ask me if i want to go get some breakfast, because it turns out that my room won't be ready until 9am. apparently the floor i'm to be staying on has been remodeled, and all the rooms had been in a different area prior to that day and that was the day that everyone was getting moved back. of course, i'd had breakfast at 4am and was just ready to get this stuff going, so they tell me to hang out for a bit, then they'll get me all hooked up. (remind me again why i had to be here at 6:45am?) i get changed into my jammies and then go into the eeg room and climb onto the bed. i look ahead of me and find i'm being stared at by Larry, the cucumber from Veggie Tales. i look at the ceiling and find myself being watched by the Cookie Monster and Big Bird. a look to the right and i see Zoe and Ernie. a look to the left, there's Eeyore. i say to the eeg technician, "errr, lemme guess...you usually test children in this room?" she tells me yes. so i lie back and stare at Cookie Monster and the eeg tech explains to me what's going to happen - she's got a red grease pencil and a tape measure and she takes various measurements of my head and makes a mark on each special spot. once she's got all the appropriate marks made, she tells me she'll be placing a small piece of gauze on the spot, putting a liquid adhesive on that and then placing the electrode on top of that - then she uses an air compressor to affix the electrodes to my head. it's a weird sensation - a mix of slight pain from these things being pressed very hard onto my skull, combined with the loud noise of the cold air bursting from the air compressor, which tickles a bit.

so, there are 25 of these electrodes on my head - each with a colored wire (rainbow colors!) that's plugged into a little box (about the size of a paperback book) with a strap on it for me to carry around, should i need to go to the bathroom or whatever. additionally, they put two monitors on my chest and one below my left eye - it's to monitor eye movements when i have a seizure. so, the little box full o' wires has a computer cable connected to it. when we get up to my room (at 10am) we connect the cable to the computer in the room - the computer's less than 10 feet away from my bed, with a camera perched atop the monitor. on the monitor there's a box showing what the camera's capturing, and a window with all the eeg activity. i notice the computer has a dvd drive on it and ask the eeg tech if she brought me any movies, but i guess she didn't get the joke. apparently the info the computer gets is burned onto a dvd. a picture here shows you what the setup is like, though i'm sure my setup was older than the one pictured.

so, i climb into bed and get ready for my close-ups. since the camera is trained on the bed, that's where i spend most of my time, except when i arrange all my cords and wires properly and walk to the bathroom. i keep busy with the magazines and stuff i brought, or by watching tv. while looking at the eeg, i notice that when i raise my eyebrows all the waves go crazy, so i spend time being goofy and seeing how various facial expressions effect the waves on the screen. yup, i'm definitely bored. i spend a LOT of time sleeping, making sure all the cords and such don't get tangled and start pulling me in different directions.

since i'm not really sick, i don't see many people - they don't really come in to check on me, except when they're bringing me meals, or meds (i'm not taking my seizure meds the whole time i'm there, but i do take all my other meds), or writing down my stats (blood pressure, temp, blood sugar, etc)...the phone in the room is rather strange - the ring on it is very low, and it doesn't really sound like a ringing phone. who knows how many calls i missed. *shrug*

so monday turns into tuesday....no seizures, nothing. i ask the doctor if they're going to try to induce a seizure in me or anything...he has me take a series of deep breaths, but that doesn't do anything...i ask him if they're getting any useful information out of this, even if i don't have a seizure. he tells me that there may be seizure activity recorded even if i don't feel as though i've had a seizure. he also tells me he doesn't know anything about my case, that he's just a middleman for my regular neurologist. i feel a bit cheated, but then i also realize it's partially my fault - it was me that INSISTED i have the test done here rather than at Community. he tells me he'll see me the next day and vanishes before i know it - he was probably in the room less than 2 minutes, deep breathing session included.

so tuesday turns into wednesday...still no seizures...spend lots of time sleeping...wednesday turns into thursday and they release me thursday morning, having had no seizures...the shower i took on thursday was delightful - a great feeling, not being attached to cables and stuck carrying this little purse around. the glue they used to attach the electrodes to my head is some heavy duty stuff - i washed my hair twice, really scrubbing, but still had lots of stuff in my hair. it looks like i've got a serious case of dandruff, but i know it'll all come out eventually. the eeg tech says it could take up to 3 weeks to get all the stuff out, but i think it'll be long gone before then. she also told me i could use nail polish remover to get it out - yeah, i've got tons of that just sitting around at home! *8-) i'll just go with the extra scrubby hair washings, thanks...

amazing how 3.5 days in the hospital can be a vacation, but it really was - not having to deal with work, getting plenty of sleep, it left me feeling really good...not sure how long that feeling will last, but oh well...

i think the fact that i didn't have any seizures even with ZERO seizure meds in my system says a lot - i think the fact that i wasn't stressed and i got lots of sleep made it harder for me to actually have a seizure - they need to have me hooked up at work! it makes me think about the job thing and whether i should request a new schedule or something...*ponder*....

so now i'll sit around and wait to hear from the doc as far as what the test told him...where we go from there, who knows...