Gary shopper doesn't have a care in the world and he's happy about that. For 62
years he dealt with seizures every day. >>They started actually from childbirth
but they really didn't manifest himself you know come out until about I'd say
three. >>He would just start laughing. You know, nothing was said to him or anything
but he would just laugh and it wouldn't take, I mean, he wouldn't laugh like
minutes, it would be just a few seconds and he'd stop and then he'd be done with
that. >>19 of Gary's seizures were caught on tape at Penn State House epilepsy
Monitoring Unit.
>>[Laughter] But my leg would go dead all the time my right leg used to go dead. >>He was having
seizures which are called, gelastic seizures. >>When you have that type of
seizures people had this episodes of laughter which are uncontrolled which
are several and they last for a few seconds to few minutes and they come from out of
nowhere they could happen when a person is just sitting. He'd have them every day.
Some days he'd have, you know, six of them, the next day, you might have two. >>When I
was getting seizures I mean I had them controlled under medication but the
medication dope dope me up. >>He was quite frustrated to be honest because despite
taking these medications, these medications don't come without side
effects because they hurt your liver and they make a person lethargic. >> I felt like like
I wish there was something I could do but I knew there wasn't. [Laughter]
>>After watching Gary seizures, the neurology team knew something had to be done.
>>The location of his legion was unique and we could not do traditional
epilepsy surgery. It wasn't something that we see and we take out. So he needed
a different type of surgery. >>The official name is lit which is laser interstitial
thermal coagulation or thermal ablation we usually just refer to it laser
ablation. But it's basically using laser laser heat to ablate or destroy some
abnormal tissue. And that can be epileptic tissue, it can be tumors but
using laser heat to cause destruction. >>He said it's a new procedure and he said
I'm not gonna, I'm not going to kid you, there's no 100% guarantee, you know or
anything but he said it's you stand a real good chance of than other
procedures that they had, you know, he said this is a better one I think.
>>She says well what do you think and I said well it's probably best to try it and if
it don't work, it doesn't work. >> I was a little bit scared and he put me at ease
he told me you know what it was about, you know, before I had done.
>>There's really two operative parts. The first part is actually getting the laser fiber
into the brain and that's done in the operating room. It's black linear
structure that you see going down is the laser fiber itself and so we're about
nine centimeters in from the top of the skin which is up here down into the
lesion itself or the hamartoma right there. The second part is actually
bleeding the lesion using the laser fiber heat, we do that down in the MRI
suite. >>A treatment that changed Gary's life. He certainly did fix it and he
really did a good job because I haven't had any problem since. >>Since he had the
surgery, it was no more seizures. I know he was glad for it because, I mean, he
lived all those years with having seizures. >>It's amazing what it did
for me. I can't say enough about it. >>It has made a huge difference. I would worry
about him when he would lay down and you know wake up and then have a seizure
right away and now I hear is him snoring. So I was just glad it worked.
>> I feel great. I was afraid to do a lot of stuff you
know because I might get a seizure you know. I don't hesitate to do anything now.