From 8-10 daily seizures to nearly seizure free -- science helps change Oakland County man's life

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (FOX 2) - Through patience and the power of science, an Oakland County man went from having 8-10 seizures a day to being nearly seizure-free.

Imagine riding a Ferris wheel for 15 years straight, rolling on and on with no destination.

"We didn't know what was going on," Pete Varga said.  "A lot of people don't understand."

From 2005 to 2020, that was life for Pete and Marisa Varga.

"My former doctor would just say, 'We're going to put you on meds and just adjust the medicine, adjust medicine and take a lot of tests, and if it doesn't work well put you on a new medicine,'" Pete said.

It was a life of runarounds and never-ending circles.

"Watching your loved one have a tonic colonic seizure the type you'd see in the movies it's really scary," Marisa said.

Pete had his first seizure in 2005 and as fate would have it- it wasn't his last.

"It really hasn't made sense until I came here," Pete said.

A whopping 15 years later, at the Beaumont Adult Comprehensive Epilepsy Clinic in Royal Oak, Pete learned his medication wasn't working. That meant it was time for doctors to get to work.

"With a robotic arm, the neurosurgeon was able to drill 18 holes in Pete's head, place the electrodes in his brain with assistance from the robotic arm, and Pete sat here for 14 days, so they could record all of the seizures he had at this time," Marisa said.

All 115 of them.

This painted a better picture of where to best implant some incredible technology.

"Neuro pace or responsive neuro simulation is like having a permanent EEG in your brain. It's constantly recording brain waves. We program it to recognize abnormal brain waves than from those abnormal brain waves we send little treatments/shocks to stop the seizures from starting or spreading," said Dr. Andy Zillgitt, the director of the epilepsy center at Beaumont.

This small device gives doctors at Corewell Health, formerly known as Beaumont, the data they needed to remove three parts of the left side of Pete's brain.

"It's just been so helpful," Marisa said.

Following surgery, Pete has some memory and language processing issues but hasn't had a single seizure in three months.

It's giving Pete and Zillgitt hope for the future.

"There's about 4,000 people in the country with neuropace and it constantly recording abnormal and normal brain data, and what you can do with 4,000 people is start putting together big data, and once we put together that big data and look at patterns you see that seizures may not be as random as we once thought," Zillgitt said.

The never-ending journey finally reaches a destination, one with answers, confidence, and trust.

"We are so happy," Marisa said.