© THOMAS NORTHCUT/GETTY IMAGES
Ron Blackwell reclined in a hospital bed at Stanford University, bandages from his recent brain surgery wrapped snugly around his head. Doctors had just removed a piece of his cranium, implanted electrodes on the surface of his brain, and closed him back up. He waited for a seizure.
Blackwell, 49, had his first seizure when he was 11 and had experienced similar incidents periodically thereafter. But after he turned 40, the seizures became more frequent. He wanted to feel secure when caring for his two young children instead of worrying that he might have a seizure while bringing them to the park. So in 2012 he gave doctors the OK to implant the electrodes, which were designed to pinpoint the epicenter of his seizures as ...
