Return to a dream delayed
Adrienne Bushrod has had epilepsy since age 11. But since having a new device implanted in her chest, she's been able to return to Sac State to pursue her degree.
All so-called "mature" or "returning" college students – you know, those who remember when Bobby Brown was the Chris Brown of his day – have a story behind their departure and ultimate second chance at higher education.
Life can intervene, you know, and derail even the best-laid plans.
For Adrienne Bushrod, a 40-year-old senior at Sacramento State, the return to campus these days has nothing to do with life choices. Rather, it's all about finally being able to deal with a debilitating medical condition that strikes without warning and with varying levels of severity.
Bushrod has had epilepsy – a disruption of the brain's normal function that causes seizures – since age 11. And while medication at first seemed to quell the seizures that would rend her inactive and disrupt normal life through high school, the episodes returned once she began college at Sacramento State two decades ago.
"They definitely got more pronounced in college," she remembers. "I kept changing medicine combinations to try to make it less noticeable. But it affected my cognitive ability. And I also had to work to keep my insurance. So I made a choice to quit school and try to get my health together."
She's back now, though, majoring in family studies and contemplating graduate school for a career in child advocacy or marriage mediation.
Credit, of course, should go to Bushrod's perseverance and strength. But medical technology also has played a major role in her return to "normal" life living with epilepsy.
Implanted on the left side of Bushrod's chest, in the spot where you put your hand to say the Pledge of Allegiance, is an electrical device the size and shape of a Toll House cookie. Running from that is a wire that snakes up to her neck and attaches to a nerve that originates in the brain stem.
At preset intervals, the device transmits electrical pulses to the brain that help prevent or reduce the severity of epileptic seizures.
It's called a vagus nerve stimulator, and it's a huge reason why Bushrod is back on campus.
Her seizures have not stopped – nothing short of risky brain surgery could accomplish that, her doctor says – but she can control them to such an extent that the convulsions mostly do not hinder day-to-day activity.
A quick zap, noticeable but not painful, every 30 to 60 seconds has reduced the number and severity of episodes. And, during a seizure, a magnet the size of a small pager can be waved over the device to disrupt the electrical brain storm and restore equilibrium.
She carries it wherever she goes. Her husband, Greg, has one too.
"He's very skilled," she says with an embarrassed laugh. "He knows exactly where my stimulator is located and what to do. I've told other people how to activate it, too.
"In the rapid cycle, I don't feel the pulsation. But when I get an extra jolt, I do feel that. On a scale of 1 to 10, it's a 3, as far as the pain. But the body adapts and you realize the impact it's creating in your life."
Bushrod remains on three medications in addition to the stimulator, but she's been able to control the doses so that they do not impair cognitive function and thus enable her to return to college.
Her physician, Mercy Medical Center neurologist Dr. Edwin Cruz, says the stimulator has helped many patients.
"It's like a pacemaker for the brain," he explains. "Think of seizures like a row of soldiers standing in line. Imagine that the seizure starts when one soldier raises his arm. Then the soldiers around him raise their arms in such a way that it spreads to the whole platoon. The idea behind the vagus stimulator is if the brain is stimulated every five minutes, it would disrupt this activity."
Before having the device implanted, Bushrod was experiencing seizures nearly every day. Now, it's about once every four days, she says.
Cruz remembers that when the battery in Bushrod's VNS died last December, she suffered 45 seizures in a month before a new battery could be implanted.
"Normally, she'd have five to 15 seizures a month," he said, "so (the device) leads to a better quality of life."
That's something Bushrod has long sought. Her condition began as an 11-year-old growing up in Vacaville. She was having a "sleep out" in the backyard with her sister when she unaccountably started shaking. Doctors never determined the cause, though Bushrod says she's been told that the use of forceps during her birth might be a factor.
"I had all tests – spinal tap, X-ray, checking for possible tumors," she said. "After spending a week in the hospital, they put me on medication. I'm on my 10th type of medication now."
She recites that fact without rancor. But she certainly isn't docile and accepting of her epilepsy. Before using the stimulator, a seizure would "knock me out a whole day. I'd have to rest."
Such a cycle can be wearying. But Bushrod's only option other than continued medication and the stimulator was corrective brain surgery. Because of the location of her abnormality – the left hemisphere – Cruz cautioned against that action.
"It's quite a big area," he said. "The left hemisphere is dominant in the brain. It's the side responsible language and speech. If you take off too much, it would affect those areas."
Bushrod, for her part, agreed that the stimulator would be as medically invasive as she will get.
"You make choices," she said. "And this is what my life plan is going to be. I've learned to adapt. I don't look sick and I don't want to portray myself as being sick. This is just the way I am."