Doing the right thing...

There are times in life when things come up and you just know deep down what the right thing to do is, even though the decision is a difficult one to say out loud.

I just turned down a great job opportunity because I felt like the right thing to do at this point in my life is to stay anchored in Nebraska.

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with two friends. One of them has been going through a difficult time with her family. And she joked at one point, "I feel like standing up and shouting...I'm not going to play this game anymore." Of course the game was "her life".

There are many evenings when I am exhausted and I think to myself, I don't want to do this either. And it's not a matter of living the life that I have but more a matter of living with or accepting the pressures that come with one's busy life. Day after day of what can sometimes feel like endless monotony.

I had the opportunity to leave the state and go somewhere new and exciting, but I have passed on that opportunity in order to raise my two beautiful children in a place where they have full access to a wonderful extended family with cousins and two sets of adoring grandparents. It's the right thing to do. It's so obvious and yet I am feeling melancholy.

Sometimes I think that my life is no longer my own. Instead, it is dictated by doctor appointments and work commitments, etc. Today at work I was sitting at my desk and I had felt odd most of the morning. I kept wondering if I was going to have a heart attack, a stroke, or just plain pass out and have a grand mal seizure. I even thought at one point, "whose office should I go to?" "Who would most likely call 911 and not panick if I needed assistance?"

It's ridiculous that I have to think about these things. I know there are people with seizures out there that have these fears and have auras like mine, where they feel their whole world is caving in on them. I wondered today, as I felt that my mind was not part of my body at times, "what is happening to me"?

Auras are a terrible nasty thing. I am so thankful that I have not had a complex partial or tonic clonic seizure for years, but the feelings that overcome you when you have temporal lobe epilepsy and auras of this type are so surreal to me. It is like having an out of body experience. These are the types of auras I tried to describe to the neurologists when I first started having seizures. They must have thought I was crazy. I was diagnosed with panic attacks and given Ativan and sent on my merry way. Only to be more calm (due to the Ativan) when I continued to have the auras and eventually full seizures.

I would love to meet someone who doesn't feel a panic attack coming on when they are having an aura that is making them feel as if their whole world is coming to an end and when hanging onto reality is difficult and a chore.

I sat through meetings today and an office conversation with a co-worker the other day, when she was fretting about a wedding that she was going to attend. Not a single person knew that I was experiencing an aura. It gets easier to hide as the years go on. I know that the feeling will not last long and it will be over soon. It's best to remain calm.

I am up late again tonight and I know that has been my problem lately... not enough sleep :)