GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Muskegon woman says she’s been seizure-free for over two years after a medical procedure at Corewell Health.
After nearly a decade of trial and error with different medications, surgery became the natural next step for 52-year-old Jeannie Billings.
Billings said the implantation of a device to prevent seizures, called NeuroPace, saved her life.
“I can feel everything,” Billings said. “It feels like your brain is being electrocuted when it happens.”
Billings started having seizures in her mid-twenties.
“There's gray matter in your brain when you're in the womb, and it's supposed to go out to the outsides, but mine stayed in,” Billings said.
In 2011, after a seizure that sent her to the hospital, Billings had an MRI and received the results around Christmas time. Billings says she remembers hearing the words, “I don't want you to freak out or anything, but this is what we found... and try to have a good Christmas.”
This year, Billings is able to have a good Christmas, in large part because of a series of surgeries in 2019 performed by Dr. David Burdette, head of the Epilepsy Center at Corewell Health.
“What we ended up doing was asking our epilepsy neurosurgeons to implant two Neurostimulation devices,” Dr. Burdette said.
Both devices monitor Billings' brainwaves. Dr. Burdette says he’s been able to bring Billings' seizures completely under control. “The two devices that she had implanted are called a responsive Neurostimulator and a Deep brain stimulator,” Dr. Burdette said.
After the surgeries, it took about two and a half years for the seizures to stop. “But when they went away, it was a lifesaver,” Billings said.
Now, nearly 13 years after the MRI results that changed her life, Billings says she's living a much better life, working full time and enjoying her days with her husband.
“It’s been over two years seizure-free, which I'm grateful for,” Billings said.
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