Abortive Attacks and Me

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Harsh and long, drawn out attack yesterday evening that lasted into the night. I hadn't even fully recovered from the attack from a week ago. After putting some hard thought into it, I've come to the conclusion that what is happening is that I am in the midst of what is called an "abortive attack". The following is from http://www.hkpp.org:

Are Interictal Weakness and Fatigue Part of Periodic Paralysis?

Patients frequently report that their physician denies that interictal weakness and fatigue are a part of periodic paralysis. While it was reported in the past that patients with periodic paralysis had 'normal' muscle strength and were asymptomatic between episodes, it is now recognized that this is not the case for all patients.

While young patients, teenagers and those in their twenties, may well rebound from infrequent episodes, older patients, those with more frequent episodes and those who are inadequately controlled may suffer from what have been dubbed Abortive Attacks.

Daily Fluctuations in Strength

Abortive attacks are those in which there are daily fluctuations in strength, sometimes accompanied by stiffness. They may involve vague feelings of fatigue to any degree of weakness short of paralysis, but their primary feature is the length of the attack, which has been reported to be of such persistence as to be mistaken for permanent muscle weakness. (1)

80% of Patients Report Abortive Attacks

In her large study of Dutch patients Dr. Links reported that eighty percent of them complained of abortive attacks. Their weakness could at times be confirmed by dynamometry although it was not accompanied by a significant change in serum potassium. Dr. Links goes on to conclude that "... abortive attacks occur, that is, long lasting episodes with fluctuating weakness... abortive attacks are probably due to a functional disturbance of the muscle membrane. We have found that the mean strength of affected persons with HypoKPP was lower than the mean average of normals. This implies that the cause of this 'less than average strength' could be the same as the cause of abortive attacks." (2,3)

Abortive Attacks May Be More Disabling Than Paralytic Attacks

This demonstrates the effect many patients describe of weakness following effort which limits to some extent daily activity. This effect seems to increase with age and while the weakness may not resolve in paralysis it tends to linger for a longer period of time. This lack of outright paralysis has led to some researchers concluding that attacks disappear with age. It is probably more accurate to say that attacks change in character. Abortive attacks which linger for days or even weeks on end may be more disabling than brief paralytic ones.

Abortive Attacks are Amenable to Treatment

The distinguishing factor between the Abortive Attack and permanent muscle weakness is that Abortive Attacks are amenable to treatment, where permanent muscle weakness is not. If a patient is complaining of fatigue and weakness between episodes of paralysis consider more aggressive management strategies, i.e. more control of diet and appropriate therapies.

SO, after all of that, I hope I have shown some light on what is going with me at this point. Also, I am happy to share the sources for the all of the above information, should anyone ask for it or request it.

I was down for the whole day and ate sparingly with the snacks being small oranges, a banana and an apple. This afternoon, after i woke up from an extended nap, CC asked Josh and Jayden to play Scrabble, so I decided to join in as well. When Jayden's mom arrived to pick his sister and him up, we began a new game with just the four of us (CC, Missy, Joshy and me). I cannot remember the last time we all played a game together (I think it was Candy Land, but I don't remember when...) and we found this game tonight to be lots of fun for the four of us. Why no Xbox you ask? Because I decided that certain children's *dispositions* were seemingly hinging on when and how long they could play Xbox and I felt that the **privilege** of playing it had become an expectation of highest priority; something I had suggested could possibly become a reality if *said* children's perceptions and goals were to become skewed and polarized incorrectly. Xbox is now playable M,W,F,S,S as long as the re-focus proves positive and productive in both time management and disposition, a.k.a., attitude or 'tude. The rumor mill has been heard to say that IF there is ANY attitude during this time that the Xbox days will shift to Tuesday and Thursday only, with a possible Saturday with dad only. So far, no attitude...go figure.

Monday, before things got bad on my end, HKPP-wise, Joshy taught me how to play chess!...and I liked it, too. That was one of his Christmas gifts to me; to teach me how to play chess so we can play it together.

I'm thinking of other things I want to share, but I am fast running out of steam.
Here are three of them, in brief:

Long, long ago, when I was a naive Christian, *** "na⋅ive"
Spelled Pronunciation [nah-eev]
–adjective
1...having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous: She's so naive she believes everything she reads. He has a very naive attitude toward politics.***
I graduated from high school and then took a summer job at the famed Christian Camp, Westminster Woods, in Sonoma County. The story of that experience will wait for now, but an aspect of it won't. That is, on my first day there, I met a guy my age named Bob Stewart, and by the time I left the Woods, some 12 weeks later, Bob had become a very close, good and loyal friend who made me laugh nearly every single day and managed to keep my sanity and even help prevent me from loosing my cool and possibly my job. He was my best friend while I was there and my heart warms as I think of the escapades we created and survived, all the while, laughing. Anyway, as we were getting ready to leave the Woods at the end of the summer, I asked Bob what he wanted to do for the next chapter in his life and he said "I want to jump out of perfectly good airplanes." I knew what that meant and I was not thrilled at the thought of him putting his life on the line overseas somewhere, but I knew that it was his calling and I was able to cope with that. I lost touch with him shortly thereafter and have only hoped that he was alright, safe and sound and happy. This past week I got an email from him via Facebook and we are once again communicating. I am so, so very proud of my brother and friend who has been living his dream to jump out of planes and he has unquestionably made a difference and had an impact in the war in Afghanistan. I do have my heroes, and Bob is one of them.

Also last week, two other friends from *back then* contacted me via Facebook; my dear friend Jim "Snowman" Snow, former lead guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for the Orange County band "The Innocent" (as well as my replacement in Forthright when I left in 1991) and Wallace Helms, drummer, vocalist and songwriter for our band Forthright for the 3 or so years I was in the band (he also did a ton of other stuff for the band too...). Wallace and I were the two lead vocalists of the band and the primary arrangers of the songs we did. We were very close and good friends, like brothers, while we were in the band together (Wallace sang "I can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" during my wedding, to Sam Harman's piano accompaniment) but after CC and I moved to the Bay Area in the summer of 1991, Wallace and I eventually lost contact and communications when he moved to Tennessee. My sadness over this disconnect was deep and long lasting and I have always wanted to reconnect and carry on and now I'm encouraged to hopefully do so. So much to talk about over so much time...

Restoration can come in a variety of significant forms.

Time to do a quick scan over this and edit and then post it and go to bed; when the bell rings tomorrow morning, I want to be able to come out of the corner ready to swing...

peace-