Ace of Spades HQ

July 31, 2007

Roberts Doing Fine, But Likely Epileptic
— Ace

I have to think he's either got a very mild case of it or, due to his good lifestyle (little drinking, moderate use of stimulants like coffee, good sleeping schedule) he just barely ever tugs at the seizure trip-wire.

"The chief justice assured him that he was doing fine," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "The president was reassured."
Roberts "sounded like he was in great spirits," Snow said, relaying details of the phone call.
Doctors who examined Roberts after his seizure said they found no tumor, stroke or any other explanation for the episode.
Roberts, 52, had a similar, unexplained attack in 1993.
...
By definition, someone who has had more than one seizure without any other cause is determined to have epilepsy, said Dr. Marc Schlosberg, a Washington Hospital Center neurologist who is not involved in the Roberts case.
Whether Roberts will need anti-seizure medications to prevent another is something he and his doctor will have to decide. But after two seizures, the likelihood of another at some point is greater than 60 percent.
Epilepsy is merely a term for a seizure disorder, but it is a loaded term because it makes people think of lots of seizures, cautioned Dr. Edward Mkrdichian, a neurosurgeon at the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch.
Still, Mkrdichian said anyone who has had two otherwise unexplained seizures is at high risk for a third, and that he puts such patients on anti-seizure medications.
"Having two seizures so many years apart without any known culprit is going to be very difficult to figure out," agreed Dr. Max Lee of the Milwaukee Neurological Institute.

He was on a boat before the attack. Maybe the sun, heat, and a little dehydration just pushed him over the seizure threshold. A lot of epileptics have their symptoms triggered by bright rapidly-flashing lights, usually strobe type. Maybe some others can get it by less intense flashing, like the sun glancing off the water and windshield for a few hours. I know when they do testing for this they try different flashing light cycles, some of them relatively slow.

Posted by: Ace at 09:26 AM | Comments (26)
Post contains 363 words, total size 2 kb.

1 What??? You mean he's not going to die???

Posted by: WORTHLESS COCKSUCKING PIECE OF SHIT LEFTIST at July 31, 2007 09:34 AM (0gxRQ)

2 Maybe it was his boat and he'd just got the bill at the gas dock. With two 75 gallon tanks and marine gas @ $3.41/gallon, I've come close to foaming at the mouth myself.................

Posted by: Sort-of-Mad Max at July 31, 2007 09:36 AM (WTn2v)

-- BRIGHT LIGHT --

<Wallet>

Posted by: BumperStickerist at July 31, 2007 09:41 AM (wieXQ)

oh, forgot.

Test.

Posted by: BumperStickerist at July 31, 2007 09:42 AM (wieXQ)

>>Maybe it was his boat and he'd just got the bill at the gas dock.

Or inhaled some gas and marine glue.

Posted by: Tushar D at July 31, 2007 09:42 AM (IlgNp)

6 Well, it shouldn't be an impediment to his continued legal career. After all, it didn't stop Caesar from conquering pretty much everything.

Posted by: JohnW at July 31, 2007 09:42 AM (wg4FW)

7 BumperStickerist, LOL!!!

Posted by: Tushar D at July 31, 2007 09:43 AM (IlgNp)

8 marine gas @ $3.41/gallon

Geez, I'm paying more than that per gallon to fill my car. Fucking SoCal.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at July 31, 2007 09:49 AM (tVbxd)

#8 IllTemperedCur:

Geez, I'm paying more than that per gallon to fill my car. Fucking SoCal.

It's even worse than that; includes a free holding-tank pumpout!

Posted by: Sort-of-Mad Max at July 31, 2007 09:52 AM (WTn2v)

#6 JohnW:

Well, it shouldn't be an impediment to his continued legal career. After all, it didn't stop Caesar from conquering pretty much everything.

Julius invented one tasty salad, too, I'll say boy howdy!

Posted by: Sort-of-Mad Max at July 31, 2007 09:56 AM (WTn2v)

11 Now you're just rubbing it in, Max.

Bastard.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at July 31, 2007 09:58 AM (tVbxd)

Lots of people in my extended family (by blood and marriage) are epileptics, and only one I remember having serious trouble (in that he is not allowed to drive now, because he had a seizure while driving once.)

I used to have a dog that was epileptic, too.....hmmm, maybe it's infectious.

Posted by: meep at July 31, 2007 09:59 AM (5j3FI)

13 Just when you think that doctors are this close to having it all figured out, and maybe we're just a few years away from that pill that will let you live forever, you find out that "epilepsy", like so many other disorders, really just means "the name for all the different seizure stuff we haven't figured out yet."

Which means that the Cancer Treatment Center lady only made it past two months on a fluke, and I'll be lucky to wheeze my way to 70.

Crap, I was really hoping to see Halley's comet again.

Posted by: a4g at July 31, 2007 10:00 AM (bfr28)

14 Gas is presently $2.64 in my neck of the woods (central IL) as is as low as $2.54, 30 miles away in the state capital, Springfield. So Cal seems to keep that $1 premium built-in. I used to take lots of business trips to Newport and La Jolla and used to gasp at the prices at both destinations when I filled up the rental.

Posted by: Laddy at July 31, 2007 10:13 AM (SpX+n)

15 Let's see...

John Roberts is a lawyer......Ace is a lawyer

John Roberts is an epileptic....Ace is an epileptic

John Roberts is Chief Justice....Ace is, um, ah, proprietor of a moron blog.

Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad!

Posted by: Drew at July 31, 2007 10:19 AM (hlYel)

16 He was on a boat before the attack. Maybe the sun, heat, and a little dehydration just pushed him over the seizure threshold.

I think his seizure was tripped when he woke up and found hobo blood all over his hands and realized he had oops done it again . . .

Posted by: dave at July 31, 2007 10:25 AM (CQYpd)

17 A lot of epileptics have their symptoms triggered by bright rapidly-flashing lights, usually strobe type.

This is a bullshit lie invented and propagated by epileptics to avoid being forced to go to disco clubs.

Posted by: dave at July 31, 2007 10:37 AM (CQYpd)

18 Well, maybe he needs to hang out at Greg Norman's house more often.

Posted by: Lt. Col. E Buzz Miller at July 31, 2007 10:46 AM (sf4Oe)

19 My sister has had a couple of seizure episodes in the supermarket - each time when she was picking stuff out of the frozen food case in a particular supermarket. It seems the fluorescent lights in the store and the lights in the case were tuned in such a way that their interference pattern triggered a seizure in her. Everywhere else, no problem - not even the picket-fence-at-sunset thing gave her any difficulty. Weird.

Wasn't there a report about a year ago of a children's TV show in Europe triggering seizures in viewers? Of course, I have a reaction to most Euro-TV, but it's of the spew variety.

Posted by: Brown Line at July 31, 2007 11:14 AM (50X/W)

-- BRIGHT LIGHT --

Hmmm, if only we could make that blink.......

Something tells me Pixy would be smart enough to turn off the html blink tag.

Posted by: Will at July 31, 2007 11:38 AM (olS40)

>By definition, someone who has had more than one seizure without any other cause is determined to have epilepsy, said Dr. Marc Schlosberg, a Washington Hospital Center neurologist who is not involved in the Roberts case.

I find this confusing, because there are such things as chronic nonepileptic seizures. Some of these are caused by underlying phsyical problems, while others (known as psychogenic seizures) are caused by deep-seated psychological issues. I know someone who gets psychogenic seizures almost daily, yet she is not diagnosed as epileptic. It would actually be better for her if she were epileptic, since epilepsy is treatable and psychogenic seizures are resistant to treatment.

The Epilepsy Foundation has a page on nonepileptic seizures here.

Obviously, the neurologist quoted above knows far more about this than I do, but I still can't reconcile what he's saying with what the Epilepsy Foundation and my friend's doctors are saying. Maybe there's a difference of opinion, even among experts, about classifying seizures?

Anyway, I hope Justice Roberts is okay.

Posted by: sauropod at July 31, 2007 02:00 PM (hAdhk)

22 Roberts is hot. He looked good leaving the hospital today.

Jilf.

Posted by: Stormy70 at July 31, 2007 03:31 PM (Y+o71)

23 Nothing to worry about, Justice Roberts was merely imitating the ACLU's position on national security against threats here & elsewhere around the world.

Posted by: exdem13 at July 31, 2007 04:49 PM (G4AdY)

24 Hey, sometimes Dramamine can cause a seizure. Family friend's kid had one on a plane. Went to the hospital, battery of tests, long story short....Dramamine. Never had another one,so Roberts, boat 14 years apart could be that simple.

Posted by: Harp at August 01, 2007 04:55 AM (ljcNo)

25 Rob Denton, Chanel Watches managing director Dvd Box Sets and vice Dofus Kamas

Posted by: Gaia Gold at July 31, 2009 11:57 PM (yG2FS)