Dr. Delashaw looked at me and said, "Maya, you're probably going to be taking Tegretol the rest of your life." It felt like a punch in the stomach. I was expecting him to tell me that I was done taking it. While the MRI scan had shown healthy tissue, with nothing developing where the tumor had been, I still had a neuron that liked to misfire. Dr. Delashaw explained to me that the misfiring neuron jostled up the rest of my brain enough to put me at risk for complex-partial seizures; thus I needed to continue taking Tegretol, since it had the capacity to keep all the neurons connecting on regular levels.

Now that I'm facing the possibility of accepting this drug as an integral part of my life, it is worth asking some fundamental questions about the real relationship it has with my brain.

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