Wow, so I've been a bit of a slacker at updating the thread... but in my defense, we've had a heck of a year or two. A few of the guys at FFC have probably heard some of this...
Starting in 2017, my wife started going to Emory in Atlanta for her epilepsy. After lots of testing, and far from just getting the second opinion we were looking for, the doctors up there decided that she was a candidate for surgery! Apparently they evaluate a couple thousand people a year and only one or two hundred are viable candidates. That was unexpected news, to say the least--we hadn't even considered that as an option, much less any hope that she could be "cured".
In January of this year, she had probes inserted to nail down where the seizures were originating, and then on April 19th she went in for surgery to have that part of her brain removed (sounds scary, doesn't it?).
You know how they always tell you before surgery that "there's a small risk of (serious thing)"? Well, she caught that risk. During the surgery she suffered a stroke in the part of her brain that primarily controls motor function, and when she first came out of surgery she couldn't move anything on her left side. Those first couple days were probably the scariest of my life.
Fast forward four months.
Two weeks of intense inpatient therapy had her
walking out of the hospital, unsupported. A couple more months of outpatient therapy back home has her running around kicking a soccer ball with our son. We're hitting the gym four days a week and she's back up to (or exceeding!) where she was before her surgery. I think her progress has exceeded even the best expectations of any of her doctors or therapists--so much so that as of yesterday she's done with all of her therapy.
And over the past couple of weeks, she's been coming out to the shop to rivet with me

Her therapists consider it a good therapy exercise and she's enjoying it, and with her help I'm ready to flip the canoe as soon as I get the cowl exit heat shield riveted on. I'll have some pictures up after the flip.
Oh, and just before her surgery, I also picked up an engine core, so to speak--an O-360-A1A, disassembled and tagged minus cylinders. An experienced local A&P will be helping me assemble it when the time comes.
But the best part of all this? Still no seizures

She has at least a couple more months to go before we can start working on getting her driving again, but the longer she goes the less likely it is she'll ever have one again.