Seizure Free

Surgery at the Baylor Neuroscience Center can help end seizures.

Wendy Howard didn’t know what was happening. It was June 2006, and for quite a while her co-workers had been telling her that she sometimes would “blank out” for a few seconds while they were talking to her. Now she was pulled over in her car and a police officer was asking her, “Do you realize you just sideswiped someone on a bicycle?”

She didn’t remember any of it. And that scared her.

But this wasn’t the first time Howard, now 36, was losing awareness. “I had occasional episodes over the years, but I didn’t know what they were and they didn’t interfere with my life,” Howard says. “I went to college, passed the CPA exam and did a lot of things.”

A conversation with her mother finally put the pieces together. As a 14-month-old, Howard had experienced a prolonged febrile (fever-related) convulsion after an infection, and then developed temporal lobe seizures. A doctor prescribed anti-seizure medication for two years, and afterward everything seemed to be fine.

Finding the Cause
After her accident (the bicyclist was OK), Howard went straight to the emergency room at a hospital in Plano, where she lives. The on-call neurologist diagnosed complex partial seizures and prescribed medication. She wouldn’t be able to drive for six months.

After discussing the situation with her parents, Howard decided she wanted a more definitive treatment. Online research led them to the Baylor Neuroscience Center.

“Wendy had a type of brain lesion called a mesial temporal sclerosis,” says Bruce Jenevein, M.D., a neurologist on the medical staff at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas. “This is an area of abnormal brain tissue in the temporal lobe that facilitates the occurrence of seizures.” The scar likely formed after the convulsion she had as a child.

“This type of lesion can cause difficult-to-control seizures,” Dr. Jenevein adds. “In some patients, medication will control them, but they often tend to worsen over time.”

A New Lease on Life
Howard was an excellent candidate for surgery to remove the scarred tissue, which would eliminate or significantly reduce the frequency and severity of her seizures. She underwent the procedure at Baylor Dallas in December 2006.

“Since the surgery, I have had absolutely no seizures,” Howard says. It also eased her stuttering, something she had dealt with for years. “My speech has improved 98 percent, which has really boosted my confidence. It’s a whole new lease on life for me.”

By Deborah Paddison

For more information about the Baylor Neuroscience Center.