The moment that taught me the most about hope came in Aug. 2025. I walked into the UCSF building to begin a clinical trial and decided that calculated risks were appropriate, even when the outcome is uncertain. Regardless of the risks involved, my future is worth fighting for. It was on that day that I became the first person with epilepsy to have low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) treatment.  
 
For years, epilepsy took things from me one piece at a time. My Army career was cut short, and with it, much of the identity I had built as a Special Forces (Green Beret) soldier. I lost my driver’s license. My independence disappeared. My life revolved around unpredictable seizures and medications that often made me feel worse than the illness itself.  
 
I fought that reality for a long time. Then I was referred to the VA’s Epilepsy Center of Excellence, which referred me to UCSF for LIFU. For the first time since my diagnosis (2008), I felt something I hadn’t felt in years: genuine hope. The team wasn’t just treating my epilepsy. They were pushing the boundaries of what might one day be possible for people like me. They believed there were still options worth pursuing, and little by little, I started believing it too.  
 
That hope carried me into my Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy (LITT) surgery on 15 June 2026, also at UCSF. I knew that there were no guarantees. But, three weeks post-op, the surgery has worked better than I was prepared for. When I opened my eyes, I looked at my wife, Kathleen, and said, “It worked. I feel grounded.” It was as if someone had flipped a switch. For the first time in years, I felt calm. The constant uncertainty that had defined my life for 19 years was suddenly gone.  
 
That experience changed how I viewed my future. Instead of asking, “Why did this happen to me?” I started asking, “How can I use this experience to help others?”  
 
That question led me to begin building Unbroken, a veteran-to-veteran community for veterans living with epilepsy. I realized that the hardest part of epilepsy is often not the seizures themselves. It is the isolation. Many veterans carry the same invisible burden while believing they have to face it alone because that is what they were trained to do. I will make it my life’s mission to help them.

Aaron Brandenburg