I was really fortunate in my early years that I rarely felt ostracized for my epilepsy. I was lucky enough to have protective friends and naive enough not to notice the mimicking or rude comments I’d hear about later. I remember one friend on the playground in a game of tag saying, “He’s having a seizure! Run!” and having to confront that. I came to notice that years of my childhood and teens were stolen by the fact that I was, and remain, a medical anomaly. One neurologist had the gall to tell my parents I was faking it for attention, AFTER having seen a scan that showed I was having seizures in my sleep. I feel unsafe in hospitals because nurses never believe just how sensitive I am to medication. I lost years to doctors’ offices; my mother, who had largely given up her own social life to become medically literate, explaining an eight pound binder of records to professionals that would not take the time to read any of it themselves. The ego of the first…