Seizures

PHILADELPHIA - In retrospect, Janine Swift had never been quite healthy. She didn't have much energy, rarely running or playing outdoors with other children, said her mother, Theresa, 41, of Collingswood, N.J."As a little girl, her hands sometimes used to tremble," her mother said, but doctors could offer no explanation. "We thought maybe she was just a nervous kid."There was nothing to warn of the latent disease that would suddenly attack her nervous system in March 1995, when Janine turned 16, a disease surprisingly common - yet unknown to many doctors - that is pushing scientists to the limits of microbiology.

A Baltimore City police sergeant faces up to 10 years in prison after he was convicted Friday of perjury and malfeasance for using false information to obtain a search and seizure warrant. Sgt. Dennis W. Workley, who joined the force in 1996, was charged with the misdemeanors last May after a complaint to the department spurred a months-long, joint investigation by the city police's internal affairs unit and state's attorney's office. In a statement Friday, Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said the department, which initiated the investigation, "has an obligation to preserve the public trust.

UPDATE (March 28): Meaghan McCracken, 1st Mariner Arena's public relations manager, confirmed today that Lil Wayne's "America's Most Wanted" tour will take stop at the arena on July 17. The presale for CITI Card members begins Wednesday at 10 a.m. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday at 10 a.m. --------------- Posted March 25: Lil Wayne will bring his "America's Most Wanted" tour to Baltimore's 1st Mariner Arena...

UPDATE (March 28): Meaghan McCracken, 1st Mariner Arena's public relations manager, confirmed today that Lil Wayne's "America's Most Wanted" tour will take stop at the arena on July 17. The presale for CITI Card members begins Wednesday at 10 a.m. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday at 10 a.m. --------------- Posted March 25: Lil Wayne will bring his "America's Most Wanted" tour to Baltimore's 1st Mariner Arena...

Stress is behind some seizures rather than the neurological disorder epilepsy, researchers at Johns Hopkins have determined. A team of doctors and psychologists evaluated patients admitted to Hopkins' inpatient epilepsy monitoring unit for treatment of intractable seizures. They believe a third have symptoms only mimicking epilepsy and have been misdiagnosed. These are war veterans, mothers in child-custody battles and over-extended professionals. They seem to have uncontrolled movements, far-off stares or convulsions, but the symptoms are not the result of abnormal electrical discharges in the brain characteristic of epilepsy.

Shaking, sweating and swooning are par for the course among the passionate young fans of the "Twilight" series. But reports that a scene in "Breaking Dawn" has been sparking seizures in theaters nationwide has epilepsy experts on the alert and parents thinking twice about letting their kids see the movie. Officials at the Maryland-based Epilepsy Foundation issued a warning this week to their nearly 11,000 followers on Facebook, saying people prone to certain types of seizures might want to skip the film, which has been the top-grossing movie in the country for two weeks straight.

He had been at the Iraqi front for months — and before that, in the war zones of Kuwait, Somalia and Bosnia — so for Sgt. 1st Class Mark Gwathmey, the day-to-day presence of shelling and explosions seemed like no big deal. Sure, there were headaches from an old head injury, and a few hand tremors, and some pain from a past broken foot. "[It] was nothing I wasn't ready to deal with," Gwathmey says. "I'm a Marine. " Then he got home. Back in Maryland in 2006, Gwathmey saw his shakes worsening.

Megan Elphage lives in fear of another big epileptic seizure. The 22-year-old Glen Burnie woman had her first seizure when she was 13. Even though medications largely keep her epilepsy under control, the prospect of seizures means she can't drive, which makes it difficult getting to classes at Anne Arundel Community College. She dreams of becoming a lawyer, but keeping a job is a challenge. She said her last employer in a retail store feared her disorder. New research on the best way to administer drugs that stop seizures could prove life-changing, as well as life-saving, for Elphage and others.

He ate buffalo wings and drank nine Blue Moon drafts at Burke's Cafe. At Shucker's, he washed down a pound of steamed shrimp with three glasses of Tanqueray Gin, two Coronas, a Heineken and a Johnny Walker Black Label scotch. Day after day, year after year, Andrew Palmer dined at restaurants all over Baltimore and beyond, including Anne Arundel, Baltimore and St. Mary's counties. He even traveled as far south as Florida and sampled restaurants there. His tastes ran the gamut: a Chinese joint in Fells Point one day, the upscale Capital Grille at the Inner Harbor another.

Federal agents in Baltimore helped lead an operation that this week seized and shut down nearly 700 U.S.-based websites linked to the sale of counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs as part of an international effort to upend the global online drug trade. The local operation, known as Bitter Pill, was part of an international initiative led by Interpol that spanned 100 countries and confiscated 3.7 million doses of counterfeit medications worth an estimated $10.5 million, according to federal officials.

The man who avoids paying his restaurant tab by faking a seizure is back in prison, according to the office of Baltimore City State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein. Andrew Palmer, 46, has been convicted more than four dozen times, Bernstein's office said, mostly for a unique spin on the classic dine-and-dash: Palmer would eat at a restaurant, then fake a seizure, be taken to a nearby hospital, only to be released when medical personnel found nothing wrong with him. Meanwhile, the restaurant would be stuck with an unpaid bill.

Among the 84 calls for medical and fire-rescue service that the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department received during the period Jan. 6-13 were the following: Circle Drive, 1100 block, 3:29 a.m. Jan. 10. Crews from the Arbutus volunteer station and Halethorpe career station responded to the report of a person having fallen and experiencing seizures in Arbutus. One critically injured person taken to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Silerton Road, unit block, 12:13 a.m. Jan. 10. Crews from the Lansdowne and Arbutus volunteer stations and Halethorpe career station responded to the report of a person having trouble breathing in Lansdowne.

A state task force studying gun access laws for people with mental illnesses has proposed authorizing police to seize firearms from individuals deemed a credible threat to themselves or others. Such seizures, the panel said Wednesday, would take place after law enforcement "substantiated" reports from mental health providers, social workers and other professionals. The proposal is among nine recommendations by a task force convened months before December's mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school that sparked a nationwide debate on gun control and access to mental health services.

Federal agents in Baltimore helped lead an operation that this week seized and shut down nearly 700 U.S.-based websites linked to the sale of counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs as part of an international effort to upend the global online drug trade. The local operation, known as Bitter Pill, was part of an international initiative led by Interpol that spanned 100 countries and confiscated 3.7 million doses of counterfeit medications worth an estimated $10.5 million, according to federal officials.

Baltimore police confiscated 15 dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles from storage units in the city's Park Circle neighborhood last week as part of a broader effort to combat use of the vehicles on city streets, officials said Tuesday. Six of the recreational vehicles, which are illegal to drive in the city, were identified as stolen and three others had "obliterated" serial numbers, which is the case for many dirt bikes and ATVs in the city, said Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman.

A notorious Baltimore restaurant scammer -- who would fake seizures to avoid paying the check -- has recently been released from prison, according to a police alert warning restaurants that the man is back in circulation. On Thursday evening, a patron allegedly perpetrating a similar scam was busted at Chazz: A Bronx Original, according to social media reports. Police say that Andrew Palmer, 45, whose last known address was in the block of 500 S. Broadway, recently completed an 18-month sentence.

In a time-honored rite of passage, Sarah Klos received her diploma in the sweltering heat Thursday afternoon, along with many of the 905 eligible students in the largest graduating class in Howard Community College's 39-year history. But unlike students who knew their big day in black cap and gown was coming and were impatient waiting for it to arrive, she had good reason to wonder whether such a day was even possible. Klos, who lost her short-term memory as a child after two debilitating strokes and delicate brain surgery, waged a fierce battle for nine years to achieve an associate's degree in general studies typically earned in four semesters.

TO CALL IT a backlash would hardly do it justice. Calling it an unprecedented uprising to nullify a decision of the highest court of the land would be more accurate. In the four weeks since the Supreme Court sanctioned the seizure of private homes by municipal governments for private "economic development," a firestorm of reaction has broken out in dozens of state legislatures and in Congress. At the federal level, the House adopted by a 365-33 vote a highly unusual resolution deploring the court's ruling.