Epilepsy

The Onset

At the age of 35, I awoke early, as was my habit, to drink my morning coffee and read the paper. It was a nice day and my new family had a full weekend of activities planned in our nation's Second City. I was taken aback when my new wife looked at me either as if someone close had died or the market had crashed. When I asked her what what bothering her she told me that something horible had happened during the night and that I had a grand mal seizure.

I looked at her with a sense of disbelief! I was perfectly healthy I thought. This could not have happened to me. I had just had a newborn son a couple of months before and felt immortal! 

Denial

For a long time I denied having a seizure and eventually being diagnosed with epilepsy. There are reasons for that. It's a disability that is unique. My closest family members didn't accept it and treated it like it was the elephant in the room. My family and myself are achievers and problem solvers. There is always a way to figure out  something. Yet epilepsy was new ground for everyone. Don't get me wrong, cancer, alzheimer's disease, dementia, depression/mental illness, and substance abuse etc are other very cruel horrible disabilities that were Grady obstacles that had been encountered through the generations. Yet, in my experience, this imperfection/disability has promoted such uneasiness and fear in others (professionally and family) for the past 30 years to such an extent that it's easiest to pretty much break ties with them. And I believe it brings them relief. 

The beginning of my career I was phenomonal in performance and creativity.  I possessed a strong work ethic, the ability to solve complicated problems rapidly, and most importantly, a creativity that many said was unmatched when it came to marketing new design and data management application software for engineers.   I alsolutely loved my worked and never understood why anyone could hate the jobs they gave us to do.

But everything changed professionally and personally.  I would have unpredictable grand mal seizures in the midst of important executive technical presentations which companies formerly had counted on me to completely ace.  My preparation would be fine but then I would become stressed about having a seizure. And when I had my second one, I was fired the next day. I never forget asking why and my supervisor said that his was a smaill company and he couldn't have a freak show like that happening.  

I proceeded to sue them for discrimination based on disability, which they gladly settled out of court for a modest sum. I did my best to keep up with the medications but they did not always work.  When I landed another position things went well for a while but it seemed like my employment span was 2.5 years before the seizure would come knocking back.  Medications helped however Temporal lobe resection seemed to be the most effective for about a 6 year period.

Conversations are awkward because they are afraid of being in the presence of a seizure. And to tell you the truth, I don't blame them. Before I had epilepsy, I was the same way.  And it took me 15 years to wholeheartedly accept the fact that there was no magical cure