There was never a time when I thought I could be the next one to be affected by epilepsy. A normal life was what I led for 30 years unknowing that in this lottery of life chances can pick any number!
I had my first seizure in June 2008. It was just an average day working in a call center. To my surprise I just woke up suddenly in a stretcher with paramedics standing over me and all the people I work with looking concerned for me. I don’t remember much of that day. It just seemed like a fog had covered me in a million questions I had no answers for. I was sent home with some medication and scheduled to run tests to make further determinations.
Everything that could go wrong did. Fear overwhelmed me and every negative reaction to medication occurred. It took 4 doctor visits to convince the doctors to remove me from the medication after finding liver damage. I went home and tried to go back to normal. I was not given any further medication and remember cleaning my room when I woke up again on the bed with my mother hugging me and my best friend calling 911. That was the day I was diagnosed.
There were several stays in the hospital spanning from two days to a week. Luckily, a treatment was finally found that worked for 9 months. I even got to drive again. I figured I would just take some medication for a while and everything would go back to “normal” again, but I was wrong. August 2009 I had another seizure followed by one in November and 4 in one day in December.
I can’t allow myself to wonder everyday if I will have another. I can only hope that the medication does its job and I never lose time again. Understanding that time is the most precious thing in one’s life is one of the most overlooked gifts of all. I try to remind people of that as much as possible.