The Challenge Came Later

“You have epilepsy.”
This diagnosis was not tossed down like it was a challenge.
I most certainly didn’t hear it as a challenge.
My memory of that day in 1967 - or was it late 1966 - is that I was sitting on a stretcher, a hospital gown on, Dr. McDougall standing in front of me in his white doctor’s coat to deliver this information to me. Is this an accurate image in my memory?
I have no idea. Unfamiliar post-ictal haziness didn't register much.
Epilepsy merely became something outside of me ~
that had nothing to do with me.
A seizure, when I had one, was epilepsy's only indication of it's presence.
And I didn’t see any seizure. I could only feel the after effects.
I couldn’t even see the effects on my family.

The challenge came ~ but not until 1978, ten years later.
The challenge came from the outside
from the successes of others with a different disease.
I grabbed it like a dare in a school yard game.....
if you can get better, so can I. So there.
Do I still have epilepsy?
Definitely ~ and I have the Electroencephalogram (EEG) from last year to prove it. But over fourteen years have passed since my last grand-mal seizure (tonic clonic in today's clinical terms).
Does epilepsy affect my life?
Definitely.
In the boundaries and organization of my life ~ and life is pretty darn good.