Picky Picky

These past few days have been hard. My aunt, the picky eater, is also someone thats prone to seizures. I don’t know why, but it’s been like that since she was a kid. I’ve been aware but I’ve never seen it happen to me before in real life. My parents have been getting fed up that she’s not willing to eat anything that isn’t new, freshly made, or visually appetizing. The past week my mom would wake up early to cook for my aunt, but my mom’s not as good a cook as my aunt-in-law (the one that left), so she would just look at the food disappointingly and refuse to even taste it. My mom’s cooking isn’t completely TERRIBLE, it’s just simple home-cooking. Just like that, the aunt wouldn’t eat for the whole day and would continue so for the next 2-3 days. At the most desperate times, she would just eat plain rice, while other family members would eat whatever was cooked or leftovers.

The other past weeks, I was scared that if she wouldn’t eat, it might trigger her seizures, so I would go out to buy food for her. At times, she would be the only one to get restaurant quality food while everyone else at the house would have leftovers. The uncle occasionally asked me to get him some food, too, if he heard I was already going on a run for my aunt, and he would pay me back for his and his kid’s portion, but my aunt would be using my mom’s money to pay me back. My parents saw how this was going on and knew early on that this wouldn’t be sustainable in the long-term because it’s just so much of a waste of money to by take out everyday for 3 meals a day.

Therefore, this week, my parents told me to just leave her be. Even if she goes on her hunger strike at first, eventually she’ll cave and eat regular food like everyone else. They even said that me doing this was pampering her and by doing so, she’ll just expect it more and more. So for the entire past week, no one went out to by may aunt food.

Yeah that did not end up so well. She, again, went on her hunger strike. In turn, she did not take any of her medication…for…3…days…straight… That medication can’t be taken on an empty stomach, so it wasn’t just like she was throwing some type of temper tantrum. Anyways, after the third day, she ended up having 2 seizures the following afternoon. Surprisingly, that was the one day I wasn’t home, but from what my cousin told me, my uncle instantly just made her some instant noodles and forced her to eat it along with her pills. Apparently, my uncle and cousin were used to this because this situation used to happen a lot when they were back in the motherland.

My mom freaked when she found out that night after coming home from work (because obviously this is happening to her baby sister of course she’s gonna get scared) and immediately took her to a restaurant in the morning to get her filled up. After coming home from eating, my aunt went upstairs to drink her medication and to shower. Well, she had another seizure in the shower. No one really noticed until my mom went in and saw my aunt lying on the bathroom floor with the water still hitting her. My mom freaked, again, and helped her up. After drying off my aunt, my mom just told her to get back in bed and rest up. My mom also had a long day, so they slept together in the same bed.

After a while, I was downstairs talking with my cousin. By now a few hours had passed. The kitchen downstairs is directly under the master bedroom’s bathroom. While we were talking, I heard a loud thud from above and immediately bolted upstairs to check on my aunt. My cousin didn’t hear it so she was trailing behind, and when I got into the master bedroom, I saw my mom was still sleeping, but my aunt wasn’t on the bed. I rushed into the bathroom and saw my unconscious aunt passed out on the floor again with some metal rods next to her. She wasn’t shaking anymore but was still a bit out of it. This was my first time experiencing this so I didn’t know how to react. By this time, my cousin had gone up and saw my aunt on the ground and she knew how to help prop her head up a little. I ran back into the bedroom to wake up my mom and let her know.

When my aunt woke up, we slowly helped her stand up and led her back into the bedroom to rest more. It turns out that he had to use the toilet and began having a seizure when she was wiping her hands with a towel. She tried grabbing the towel rack for balance, but instead ended up ripping it out of the wall and collapsing.

My aunt was able to get back to sleep, but my mom was too scared to fall back into bed. She stayed by my aunt’s side and just scrolled on her phone and I went back downstairs. After a few hours again, everyone was prepping for dinner, and my mom said out that my aunt had a third seizure that day in the middle of her sleeping. She recalled that she was watching my aunt sleep and out of no where, my aunt started shaking again.

Anyways, fast-forward because this post is getting a bit long, she didn’t have a seizure the next day but spent the whole day (12+ hours) glued on her iPad watching Asian dramas, and therefore had another seizure the following morning. I told her to take a break from watching her shows, but I can’t really force her or yell at her because there’s also the cultural thing where you can’t raise your voice to your elders.

TLDR: 3 days of no meds or food led to 4 days of seizures for my aunt.