28th February 2022. 323 days after the first seizure event.
Good afternoon.
Let me begin with some numbers before I muse on this month and introduce my new measure the probability number.
563 total seizures over 323 days.
Are my seizures reducing in number ? Have I plateaued ?
Before I do this let me share the probability number. This is currently at 0.92. That means that based upon my ‘history’, there is the probability of me having 0.92 seizures per day. This is a good number. It has reduced from 1.54 over time. Albeit there has been a slight uptick this month.
Now back to those questions. Let me explore answers to these in two ways.
The first way to look at these questions is as shown by the first chart below. Total seizures. This shows a levelling off over recent months. For the second month in a row, I am below 30 seizures for the period. This is pleasing. It also shows that the run rate remains broadly flat.
However, if you answer these questions in a second way, it is more interesting. Now you look at the second chart below. Rate by month. This shows if you wish, the number of seizures as a function of days. Another way of looking at this, is how many seizures have I had in the past and therefore would expect to have through probability, in the future, per day. This statement about probability and the simple graph, is a greatly oversimplified model. This would only hold true if my seizure activity was a linear process and a function of event and elapsed time.
Clearly, life is non-linear, if not ‘quantum plus’, and my seizures are generally clustered. I can go a few days with a seizure. The math is far too complex to put it into a simple x/y plot. Having said that, I do have a model which I maintain with the probability analysis. However, for the purposes of helping me ‘manage my probability’, this simple picture is a useful guide.
This second way of looking at this also helps with a wider question. How effectively, am I reducing the overall run rate. This simple chart above shows a promising ‘step down’ shape. This is promising as this is exactly as you would expect.
How so. In the same way that as a developing child learns, they will achieve step increases. Plateau. Occasionally, take a step back. Grow again in step mode. Plateau. And the process reiterates.
Of course, you will immediately see that this analogy of child development as a metaphor for the way by which, and the how, a neural network forms and ‘learns’. I use the word ‘learn’ in the proper sense not some form of Turing Test or what people call AI. Do not get me started about AI. What people ‘understand’ as AI is nothing more than a lot of calculations being performed in a very short timeframe using a binary counting system. Nothing more. It is binary. Homo sapiens and the complex adaptive system we are, are more than this simple construct.
Moving ever so swiftly on, in the same way that you can show how a neural network learns, the opposite must be demonstrated as being true for the process to be correct. In the simple example diagram above, this is a practical demonstration of the neural network unlearning and reforming alternate pathways.
What this unlearning means is that I continue through the process of practical neuroplasticity to lower the probability of the neural network seizing. There must be a better adjective. Where the neural network arrives at a ‘stasis’ where the neural network seizes.
You can see the full data on the Seizure Analysis page. I will be updating this in the next few days.
This months update is brief. I shall be taking some time out in March. Yes, another holiday. This will allow me time to reflect further as I continue to ‘not be defined’ by my seizure activity.
There may be an update whilst I am around the pool or up a mountain. Who knows.
Thank you for reading my story. I find my functional seizures fascinating and for me they continue to be a great science project for me to get my teeth into. As ever I remain very positive.
To experience is to live, and that is our purpose, whilst we await for our telomeres to finally unravel, and we depart this oasis which sits in the vastness of the universe.
For previous months update select the month from the expanded menu under Monthly Update on the homepage.