Wheeling Mom Gets Second Chance
Article Photos
Wheeling resident Charmaine J. Carney-Hand can't remember whole segments of her life. Almost 14 years ago, Carney-Hand experienced her first seizure. Diagnosed with epilepsy, she took combinations of drugs that wreaked havoc on her concentration and memory.
"I couldn't do math at all, and I couldn't remember how to use a computer," she said. "I would get so depressed because my family would be playing Scrabble or card games, and I couldn't do it anymore."
When a seizure would hit, she would drop to the ground, shaking. Other times, she would become immobilized, staring. And sometimes she would even run as far as two blocks but not know how she got there.
The last straw for Carney-Hand came several years ago when her doctor in Pittsburgh wanted to put her on antipsychotic medication.
"He said I had psychiatric problems," Carney-Hand said. "But I didn't believe anything was wrong with my mind. I just prayed to God. I called the Epilepsy Foundation, who recommended I go to either Johns Hopkins or the epilepsy program at West Virginia University. I chose WVU."
WVU neurosurgeon Dr. Warren Boling, who directs the surgery for the epilepsy program, said Carney-Hand is exactly the sort of patient who can be helped at a comprehensive epilepsy program like WVU's.
"Patients who have failed to be helped by medication or who have complex cases should be evaluated in a center like ours," he said. "We're the busiest program in this region of the United States. Epilepsy that does not respond to medicine and complex cases are treated here by a team that includes an epilepsy neurosurgeon, epilepsy neurologists, neuropsychologists and neuroradiologists."
In 2004, Carney-Hand went to WVU Hospitals Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, where doctors created a blueprint for her surgery. An MRI and video/EEG monitoring showed Boling where in Carney-Hand's brain the seizures were starting - the "seizure focus."
"We rely heavily on imaging combined with EEG to diagnose the epilepsy," Boling explained. "If we can localize the seizure focus, for the vast majority of patients we can devise a surgical strategy to remove or disconnect it."
Advanced technology has impacted not just the diagnosis of epilepsy, but also the details of the surgery. Surgeons employ image guidance technology - sort of a GPS for the brain - during the operation.
In Carney-Hand's case, the affected part of her brain was so close to her speech center that she actually remained awake during the surgery. She doesn't remember much about the experience except feeling disoriented for a day.
The effort was worth it. Medication-free, she hasn't had a seizure since her surgery in spring of 2004.
Other big life changes followed, made possible by the surgery. In January 2005, she enrolled at West Virginia Northern Community College in Wheeling, where she took classes in culinary arts. During her two years there, she served as president of the Wheeling campus Student Senate, student representative for the board of governors, and tri-campus Student Senate president.
In 2006 and 2007, she was chosen to give the spring commencement address.
"I felt very honored that they asked me to do that," Carney-Hand said.
Today, she teaches a course called Dining Essentials, in which she instructs chefs-in-training to create bananas foster and other dishes tableside.
Add to that, earlier this year, she got married. She met her husband, Billy, a cement finisher, when he was working on one of the college buildings.
The contrast between her life before the surgery and now is dramatic.
"I was medicated a lot and kind of missed out on a lot of my daughter's early childhood," she said. "My daughter will ask me, 'Mom, do you remember when we did this or that?' And I have to tell her, 'No.' But I can actually feel I am getting my memory back now."
"The vast majority of patients can be well controlled with medication," Boling said. "But if a person has tried and failed to be helped by two or three medications, pursuing medication any further will have little opportunity to control the seizures."
Surgery allows doctors to use the C word - cure.
"Epilepsy is a chronic, debilitating disease," Boling said.
"But it has a high likelihood of cure if we can find the seizure focus and remove or disconnect it."
Of adults monitored at WVU Hospitals, one in five undergoes surgery, said Dr. Adriana Palade, WVU neurologist and specialist in epilepsy. Patients who have benefited from the surgery at WVU come from all walks of life. They are mothers, fathers, students, coal miners, teachers, lawyers and even a flight attendant.
Some 80 percent of patients who have surgery for the most common type of epilepsy intractable to medications - temporal lobe epilepsy - are seizure free after a year, Palade said. For many, they can have their drugs discontinued or dosages lowered.
