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Kim Voynar

By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com

Posted Tuesday, June 7th, 2011 - 1 Comment »
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There’s No Place Like Home

The good news: We got to go home today! They got enough on the 24-hour EEG to get an idea what’s going on with Luka. That was a big relief, because Luka was ready to go home last night. “This isn’t as fun as I thought it would be,” said he, after having 27 electrodes glued onto his head and being basically confined to the bed all day and evening. But we were lucky. The kid in the room next to us, who was up banging against our mutual wall and screaming and yelling at his parents until nearly midnight last night, has been there for a week now.

If you are interested in kids and epilepsy and such, read on. If not, feel free to come back later, when I’ll have some thoughts on Anthony Weiner and his weiner. You know I’m not gonna let that one slide without commentary.

So. Most of Luka’s EEG spikes during this test were the focal type (meaning seizures that are confined to one part of the brain) while he was sleeping. He also had some generalized spikes (the more concerning ones, that affect the entire brain, and that could impact him being able to drive when he’s older) as well, but not as many of those.

Here’s what a normal EEG looks like:

And here’s an EEG of a typical absence seizure pattern (both images from epilepsyfoundation.org):

The monitor displaying Luka’s EEG had lots of spikier ones.

When he was a baby he had both tonic clonic and absence seizures, sometimes 10 or 20 a day. Right now what we’re most seeing is sensory seizures (visual and auditory hallucinations), but we’re also keeping an eye out for signs of absence seizures or tonic clonics cropping up again.

He’s also having headaches several times a month that the neuro doc thinks are migraines. The med he wanted to put Luka on required a quick EKG, which just takes a few minutes. But apparently there was an arrhythmia on his EKG so now we are home, but waiting on the cardiologist to consult with the neuro doc so we can find out if it’s a “no big deal” thing or a “we need to do more tests” thing. He also has to get an MRI so they can see what that looks like.

We’re also going to try limiting “screen time” — specifically, computers, video games and TV time. Right now we’re setting a 2-hour daily limit while we delve into what actual research is available on the subject of detrimental effects of too much screen time, and also specifically any research with regard to epilepsy and screen time. So if you know of any studies of that nature, I would very much appreciate a link.

Thanks for all the kind words, texts, IMs and emails. Your kindness and concern for my little guy is very appreciated.

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1 Comment »

One Response to “There’s No Place Like Home”

  1. Beth says:
    June 7, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    Glad our Luka is home.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon