Untold Story of Ashley Bolger

I'm sitting here (in an open classroom where my student has yet to show up), thinking, "It's time for a new blog post!" and I thought I'd write about some of my thoughts from yesterday.

As I folded laundry while watching Grey's Anatomy, I couldn't help but think how differently my life could have been if it weren't for a turn of events that occurred in 2005. Yes, this is the same year I got married, but my marriage had nothing to do with it...

In Fall of 2004, I attended Humboldt State where I rowed on their NCAA crew team. I was horrible. But I LOVED being out on the water (ironic since I get incredibly sea sick), so I worked really hard to get in shape and be as good as I could be (for a spaz). Rowing crew meant early morning workouts, I had to maintain a grade point average, and early night curfews. Because I was a Junior, I was a couple years older than most of the first year rowers and I was not able to survive on 5 hours of sleep and a RockStar. Because of my 5 am schedule and the fact that I lived in a Freshmen dorm, sleep was hard to come by. I had a perpetual migraine.

Let's skip to more relevant details. By Winter I was off the crew team due to a relentless injury (and to maintain what was left of my dignity), and I was able to resume a normal sleep schedule and give myself time to heal. My injury healed after months of physical therapy, but my headaches didn't go away. After one giant 6-month headache, my mom took me to a neurologist. The neurologist said I had migraine headaches and put me on an anti-seizure medicine. He ordered MRI's to make sure there was nothing else going on. I don't remember exactly what kind of MRI I had, but I had to have it done at UC Davis and they injected some radio active dye into me so they could see where the dye was going in my brain. It may have even been a CAT... either way, I had more tests done.

Spring semester resumed at HSU and I continued my classes and moved out of the Freshmen dorm. Other than my giant headache (which the anti-seizure medicine kept under control), life was pretty good... I was planning our wedding, I was VP of the Resident Programming Board, the "Ashley Bolger" that everyone knew.

Between Spring semester and into the following Fall is when the story gets "untold" or "weird" and even like it happened to another person. I really think the only people who knew were my parents and Adam.

It was April that I got a call from my Neurologists receptionist:
"Hi, Ashley. I want to make you an appointment  with the doctor to talk about treatment for your epilepsy."
"Uh, my what?"
"Your condition, epilepsy?"
"I don't have epilepsy."
"Oh, um... the doctor has notes here that you've been diagnosed from your scans done at UC Davis."
"Well. Ok then. This is the first I'm hearing that I have epilepsy."
"Well, what day works for you?..."

Isn't that a nice way to find out that you have a life-altering condition? Over the phone? From a receptionist? ALONE IN A DORM ROOM WITH YOUR MOMMY 200 MILES AWAY?! To say the least I was shocked and did call my mommy and daddy and I can't remember, but I probably cried a little bit.

My headaches were my only symptom. I'd never had a seizure (that I know of). I'd never had as much as a leg twitch and I was being diagnosed with epilepsy. Good thing I was already on anti-seizure medication, right? We made an appointment that April to see the doctor to follow up and make sure that we were using the correct treatment plan for my case.

The doctor threw so much new information at us it made our heads spin: you have to take your medicine consistently, if you don't take your medicine, you could have a grand mal seizure which could lead to more problems, and if you don't take your medication I'll tell DMV and your license will be suspended, surgery is an option to fix the problem, but you may lose some of your memory... It was like a whirlwind! I remember feeling like everything was upside-down and backwards and inside-out.

Medication for the rest of my life didn't seem like a good option for me considering I couldn't remember to take something as simple as vitamins every day. I panicked at the thought of surgery becuase I didn't want to have a shaved head for wedding photos, but if I had the surgery after the wedding I might not remember it.

In June we decided to see an epilepsy specialist at Stanford. However, on the way, we stopped at UC Davis to pick up copies of my films, and they LOST them. Yea, weird, huh... but somehow it figures. Once we got to Stanford the doc asked some good questions, some were hard to answer, or, it was hard to give the right answer...? Like, have you ever spaced out? Duh, I'm blonde. Have you ever lost track of time? Really? Some of the questions made me wonder, who hasn't? If those were qualifying questions for epilepsy, I wondered, who DIDN'T have it?

More importantly, the doctor asked. "Who diagnosed you? What tests did he do?"
Upon answering this questions the doctor sat back and asked, "He didn't perform a EEG?"
Nope, never.
The words I was longing to hear then came from that wonderful man's mouth: "You can't be diagnosed with epilepsy if you haven't had an EEG."
YES.
There was a catch however. "Your brain does show abnormal activity however," referring to previous MRI's done in Chico, "so let's do an EEG just to make sure."
Sure! One more test to make sure that I'm normal? Why not?

The EEG was not fun, but it wasn't horrible. I had nearly 30 electrodes glued to my head and had to sit in a room with boring old movies for several hours. Once the test was over they didn't even have a shower for me to wash the glue out. My mom and I ended up stopping at a salon on the way home and paid them to wash my hair. The results of that test were "inconclusive." Seriously?! My wedding was just over a month away and we decided to wait until after the wedding to follow up with any more tests.

We were married and went on our honeymoon in August. We moved to our "precious" little apartment in Eureka and within 5 days of moving in, I flew back down to Stanford for a week long EEG. Again, I was bored, under constant surveillance, but at least I had newer movies. Three days in, my mom drove down and kept me company during the day and stayed at a local hotel at night. By day 5, we were prying the doctor for answers. He said that they had not seen any seizure activity but something in my brain activity "was not quite right." Those were his exact words! "Not quite right." That same day, I checked myself out AMA and never looked back.

So, yes, we all know I'm  "not quite right." Haha...

But can you imagine had I not sought a second opinion? Can you imagine if I opted for surgery? I can't imagine if any of it were true! If I were still on medication.

Thank God I am me. And not that breif nightmare of who I could have been...