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https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 I had some occipital lobe taken out in 2010 when I was 20 years old, to try to treat epilepsy!

by cocire 1y ago

sitkack 1y ago
Wow, that looks drastic? How much did it help? Did you notice a change in your personality? How long did it take to recover? Did you lose vision in one eye?
- cocire 1y ago
  They really only took a tiny piece of brain out, I guess. They didn't show me, sadly. :( It was all occipital lobe so vision would have been the only thing affected. I had terrible vision in the lower-left quadrant of both of my eyes anyways, based on a medical field-of-vision test, along with my own tendency to bump into people and things on my left side (still the case). Based on many electroencephalographs (EEGs), they decided my epileptic seizures stemmed from the lower right occipital lobe of my brain. It is kind of neat proof to me that the opposite side of your brain has effects on the other side of your body; right occipital lobe affecting left visual field. So, they removed some brain, which actually did not affect my epilepsy at all, positively or negatively. I went into the hospital, got surgery, and was out maybe a week later - when that photo was taken. I had to go back a week or two later to have the staples taken out. My lower left peripheral vision is worse than it used to be. I have about eight visual seizures that each last maybe a minute or two per day, but I can carry on a conversation and nobody even knows. I take seven pills every morning, and another four each night. I do not have a drivers license, car, or really ever plan to drive again, but that is kind of why I moved to live in a city where I can walk, take public transit, and get deliveries quickly/reliably. On the nerd side, I track my seizures with my own homemade Python Django (w/ REST Framework) application, PostgreSQL, and an Apple Shortcut, usually from my iPhone or watch. Datasette and Highcharts make visualizing all my seizures tracked since December 2021 pretty cool.
  - interloxia 1y ago
    Do you also track /check your field of view? A long time ago I made a simple tool to check my father's visual field changes due to cancer. At first he found it interesting to track his condition. Unfortunately it accurately tracked his condition and he, in my option wisely, stoped using it. All the best managing and tracking
    - cocire 1y ago
      I never have really tried to measure my own peripheral visual field - no! I am not sure how I would track it - how did you? I mostly notice bumping into things on my left side. While generally people "walk to the right" on sidewalks and such, I prefer to stay as left as I can on a path. For example, walking home through downtown, I like to try to keep my left shoulder as close to buildings as I can, to avoid people coming up behind me on my left side, since I always risk bumping into them. I always choose seating in venues that is very left of center as well. While I generally do not have serious seizures resulting in falls, it's funny that the fall detection on my Apple Watch has only ever gone off when I accidentally bang my left wrist against a door frame because of my poor peripheral vision.
      - interloxia 1y ago
        I did a little reading about Hemianopsia and came up with a very simple test about 15 years ago. It was a simple winforms app. One could write it/vibe code it very quickly in just about anything. The test was run seated at a desk with a 24'' monitor. I drew a small square in the center of the screen on a back background and created a regular grid of dots which could be subdivided. Each small dot at random was briefly shown and I recorded the time it took him to hit a key. The defaults were .5 to .8 seconds and an off time from .75 to 2.5 seconds on a 7x5 grid with subdivisions for the areas he had trouble, but it's long enough ago that I don't remember what settings he preferred. The sample file I have to hand has 140 dots. I set it up so that he could customise the number of columns and rows and the number of subdivisions to target his vision loss without having to spend too much time where it didn't matter. The outputs were a grayscale image of the reaction times and the reaction time values. It was helpful to preview all the dots before starting the test. The main issue with the test was to keep it relatively short. If it took too long he found it boring and caused a bit of eye strain. If I were to write it again I would to move the center square occasionally throughout the test, and then offset the test grid from that location. Unfortunately he didn't have much time and it eventually became a bit stressful to know the rate of progression of his disease so he/we let it go and I never tried to ease the eye strain issue. > "walk to the right" on sidewalks and such, I prefer to stay as left as I can on a path." Visit Australia for a mostly keep left experience (at least in the past) :)

https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 I had some occipital lobe taken out in 2010 when I was 20 years old, to try to treat epilepsy!

by cocire 1y ago

https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 I had some occipital lobe taken out in 2010 when I was 20 years old, to try to treat epilepsy!

sitkack 1y ago

Wow, that looks drastic? How much did it help? Did you notice a change in your personality? How long did it take to recover? Did you lose vision in one eye?

cocire 1y ago
They really only took a tiny piece of brain out, I guess. They didn't show me, sadly. :( It was all occipital lobe so vision would have been the only thing affected. I had terrible vision in the lower-left quadrant of both of my eyes anyways, based on a medical field-of-vision test, along with my own tendency to bump into people and things on my left side (still the case). Based on many electroencephalographs (EEGs), they decided my epileptic seizures stemmed from the lower right occipital lobe of my brain. It is kind of neat proof to me that the opposite side of your brain has effects on the other side of your body; right occipital lobe affecting left visual field. So, they removed some brain, which actually did not affect my epilepsy at all, positively or negatively. I went into the hospital, got surgery, and was out maybe a week later - when that photo was taken. I had to go back a week or two later to have the staples taken out. My lower left peripheral vision is worse than it used to be. I have about eight visual seizures that each last maybe a minute or two per day, but I can carry on a conversation and nobody even knows. I take seven pills every morning, and another four each night. I do not have a drivers license, car, or really ever plan to drive again, but that is kind of why I moved to live in a city where I can walk, take public transit, and get deliveries quickly/reliably. On the nerd side, I track my seizures with my own homemade Python Django (w/ REST Framework) application, PostgreSQL, and an Apple Shortcut, usually from my iPhone or watch. Datasette and Highcharts make visualizing all my seizures tracked since December 2021 pretty cool.
- interloxia 1y ago
  Do you also track /check your field of view? A long time ago I made a simple tool to check my father's visual field changes due to cancer. At first he found it interesting to track his condition. Unfortunately it accurately tracked his condition and he, in my option wisely, stoped using it. All the best managing and tracking
  - cocire 1y ago
    I never have really tried to measure my own peripheral visual field - no! I am not sure how I would track it - how did you? I mostly notice bumping into things on my left side. While generally people "walk to the right" on sidewalks and such, I prefer to stay as left as I can on a path. For example, walking home through downtown, I like to try to keep my left shoulder as close to buildings as I can, to avoid people coming up behind me on my left side, since I always risk bumping into them. I always choose seating in venues that is very left of center as well. While I generally do not have serious seizures resulting in falls, it's funny that the fall detection on my Apple Watch has only ever gone off when I accidentally bang my left wrist against a door frame because of my poor peripheral vision.
    - interloxia 1y ago
      I did a little reading about Hemianopsia and came up with a very simple test about 15 years ago. It was a simple winforms app. One could write it/vibe code it very quickly in just about anything. The test was run seated at a desk with a 24'' monitor. I drew a small square in the center of the screen on a back background and created a regular grid of dots which could be subdivided. Each small dot at random was briefly shown and I recorded the time it took him to hit a key. The defaults were .5 to .8 seconds and an off time from .75 to 2.5 seconds on a 7x5 grid with subdivisions for the areas he had trouble, but it's long enough ago that I don't remember what settings he preferred. The sample file I have to hand has 140 dots. I set it up so that he could customise the number of columns and rows and the number of subdivisions to target his vision loss without having to spend too much time where it didn't matter. The outputs were a grayscale image of the reaction times and the reaction time values. It was helpful to preview all the dots before starting the test. The main issue with the test was to keep it relatively short. If it took too long he found it boring and caused a bit of eye strain. If I were to write it again I would to move the center square occasionally throughout the test, and then offset the test grid from that location. Unfortunately he didn't have much time and it eventually became a bit stressful to know the rate of progression of his disease so he/we let it go and I never tried to ease the eye strain issue. > "walk to the right" on sidewalks and such, I prefer to stay as left as I can on a path." Visit Australia for a mostly keep left experience (at least in the past) :)