I know, anyone who’s read the most recent thing I wrote is waiting for Part 2 of stimulation testing. I’m kinda waiting for it myself—I know that I was there, but as for what ends up in the blog post… that’s an excellent question. I’m trying to be as honest and thorough as possible, which is why it takes hours upon hours to write something that for me seems relatively short. It’s not a term paper and I’m not being graded (judged, perhaps, but not graded), but I’m still trying to hold myself and my writing to a very high standard under the circumstances.
However, things have been a bit… unusual since I left the hospital. It’s only been a few days, less than a week since I had the electrodes removed from my head. I noticed a little something different not long after getting in the car and leaving the hospital’s parking ramp. (And I don’t think it’s just because Teresa was driving when I’m normally the one behind the wheel—I don’t think being required to ride shotgun requires much of a mental or emotional adjustment.)
There’s one side-effect to electrocution that I’m aware of due to an incident as a child. I was standing in front of a wire fence with my older brother and looking at some cows on the other side. I reached out and grabbed one of the wires, felt some odd tingling sensation, then pulled my hand away and saw a stripe of green across my palm. My immediate thought: “I think I’m turning into the Incredible Hulk…”
No, I didn’t think earlier in 2025 that grabbing an electric fence could turn me into a giant gamma-powered rage monster. I’m guessing I was closer to age 6 and wouldn’t know anything about the reaction that copper (sometimes used in electric fences) can have when making contact with a young child’s skin. I’m just guessing about the copper causing the green discoloration, but it seems more likely than the result of hulking out, but just in the palm of one hand.
Anyway! The reason that I’ve been wondering about this is because I’ve been through seizure testing three times previously and none of them seemed to cause any sort of change in perspective or affecting my mental state in any significant way. I mean, they took me off all of my medications too quickly the second time and I ended up having withdrawal symptoms—rocking in a chair because I couldn’t stop my muscles from twitching and hyperventilating for an hour straight can make a person really reconsider developing an illegal drug addiction.
But in this case, I’ve spent more time enjoying spending time with my dogs. Looking up at the sky while riding in the car. Continually reminding my wife that I love her. Appreciating my life more instead of just idly watching the days go by. That would make sense after a near-death experience, but I never felt like that during SEEG testing. My head hurt because I had very tiny holes in my head and then little things screwed into those holes to keep the electrodes in place, but it’s not the same thing.
Then earlier today, Teresa and I stopped at a restaurant where she got a quick snack after we saw How to Train Your Dragon in the theater (FYI, you probably shouldn’t consider getting a dragon if you have small pets in the house that could either be brothers and sisters to the dragon or delicious treats…). The restaurant had little jars with slips of paper inside that could be used as conversation starters, so I pulled one out that asked about something I might like to do if I could be good at it (a certain sport, music, crafty stuff, etc.)
I thought for a moment, then thought that I might like to be good at drawing. I thought back to a time when I drew the head of a skunk Beanie Baby (including how the ceiling light glinted in its glassy eyes), then when I tried drawing a picture of my dad from a picture I took of him and Mom over 10 years ago… and then I remembered an art class from back in middle school.
We were partnered up with a classmate, sat down at a table face to face, then we were supposed to draw each other. I can’t remember how God awful my drawing looked (I remember it was God awful, but I may have blanked out what the drawing actually looked like), but I remembered seeing my partner’s drawing: my left arm bent and slightly to the side, my right hand holding a pencil against a sheet of paper and the hair on the top of my head because I was looking down as I was drawing my partner (hats off to Tim Bretl, it definitely looked like my hair and probably the rest of me, too). As I kept thinking about the drawing, I suddenly remembered that the art teacher’s name was Pat. She didn’t go by “Mrs. Johnson” or something formal, just “Pat.”
How long ago did I last think of any of that? I’ll be turning 49 later this year, so I’d guess it’s been over 35 years.
And it occurred to me that I’ve been thinking what it might be like to attend a school reunion of some kind. The most recent that I attended? Kenyon College, 10 years, summer of 2009. Why? Because my long-term memory is spotty at best. I’ve assumed that it was because of seizure medication, but whatever the reason, I didn’t want to put myself in a position of having this conversation:
“Hey, remember when we—”
“No. No, I don’t.”
And so to start thinking about what it might be like to potentially engage with people who remember me and I have zero recollection of them… part of my stomach starts churning a little bit at how awkward it could be, but part of me is also intrigued. Because what if I actually remember something?
Well, if I wanted to take the plunge, it might not be too late, given that this year is my high school class’s 30th reunion. There may be some local events planned later in the summer or fall, I might attend and maybe I wouldn’t feel ridiculous while I was there. But if I go and Tim Bretl is there, I am definitely not asking him how bad my drawing of him was.