JHS GRADUATE HOPES FOR SURGERY TO ALLEVIATE SEIZURES

FRUITLAND -- Yvette La Joie graduated from Jackson High School in 1997 without having done something every teen-ager lives for.

Because of frequent and uncontrollable epileptic seizures, she has never driven a car.

Now La Joie is 20 and contemplating having brain surgery that could allow her not only to drive but to pursue the career as a pediatric nurse she dreams of.

In June, La Joie began tests at St. Louis University Hospital that could lead to a temporal lobectomy, a procedure that would remove the part of her brain her seizures come from. The surgery could eliminate her seizures completely or allow them to be controlled with medication.

La Joie's surgery has the best chance of success because her seizures emanate from her right temporal lobe. Doctors put the recovery rate at 90 percent.

That prospect delights Ruth Lane, the Jackson High School nurse who was summoned when La Joie experienced one of her seizures.

"I would call it a miracle," she says.

Counselors told her she would not be able to work because her seizures occur so frequently. Lane was worried about her. "She was on megadoses of Dilantin and other epileptic medications I didn't even want to give her because it was so high dosage," she said.

La Joie knows what's she's talking about.

"She helped me through a lot -- not just with seizures but she was somebody to talk to," she said.

She averages five or six epileptic seizures per month. Sometimes there are more. Since age 5, doctors have tried a variety of drugs to control them with weakening results. Many of the drugs had strong side effects, including affecting liver function.

Many epileptics are able to control their condition with drugs well enough to be able to function almost normally. But La Joie's seizures occur randomly and with a frequency that prevents her from getting a driver's license or a job.

La Joie had her first gran mal seizure in the third grade. Her classmates weren't very understanding. But they understood more with age, La Joie said. She has been dependent on friends who drive.

Finding a job has been difficult. Nobody says it's the epilepsy that keeps them from hiring her but "They find another reason," her mother, Cathie, says.

Everyone takes care of everyone else in the La Joie household. Her father, Vincent, is a diabetic. He called home in the middle of the afternoon Tuesday to remind her to take her medication. "And I take care of him," she said.

"And I take care of them both," Cathie says.

Doctors haven't yet determined whether to proceed with La Joie's surgery. "I'm excited and scared at the same time," she says.

If the surgery works, she will have to relearn whatever functions that part of her brain controlled. "They said I might have trouble finding the right words to use," she said.

Her mother says they're taking the tests one step at a time but adds, "Being able to be seizure free, to go to college and do what she wants to do with her life means everything to us."

In high school, La Joie played a bit of soccer and softball, though she says she wasn't very good at either. "I just had to be extra careful."

Now she stays at home unless a friend comes by to go for a drive or to a movie. She writes poetry. One of her poems, "With Tears Streaming," was accepted for publication by the National Library of Poetry. It's about losing touch with a friend.

La Joie doesn't remember what happens during her seizures. One occurred while she was cooking, and she spilled boiling water on herself. But what scared her most was that her sister, Toccarra, was nearby. "I could have hurt my sister," she said.

One thing she has missed out

(on was teaching her now-16-year-old sister how to drive. "Now maybe she can teach me," La Joie said.)