A Life Lesson on How to Live with Epilepsy...

Twisting through me in

powerful muscle spasms.

Surfacing from unconsciousness into confusion.

Apologizing and feeling wrong.

Common knowledge says: 

there is an aura before a seizure: 

seeing colours ~

smelling burnt toast ~ 

some kind of a warning giving someone time to lie down.

My warning? Something I can neither see nor smell

lasting only seconds ~ only a vague feeling.

For the first 10 years, 

wavering between 

attempting normalcy, 

taking prescribed medication and 

waiting for the next round of seizures,

I fought against learning what it was.  

Anger and frustration gripped me when told by a loved one:

'you're going to have a seizure!’

Finally straining for common sense and logic, 

I forced myself to ask:

'How can you tell if I’m going to have a seizure?!'

'Your eyes go flat.'

It took years to learn what that meant for me.

I had to learn how my body, my mind and my soul would feel.

It was not a sensation, like smell, sound or touch but

dreamy disconnection from 

everything and everyone around me.

Drifting away.

Lesson:  

Pay attention to how you feel in your gut, in your head, in your heart.

When sounds grow distant, watery - lie down, get safe.

“To become different from what we are, we 

must have some awareness of what we are.”

~ Eric Hoffer

Author's Note: Edited January 28, 2024

Author's Post Script:

February 1, 2024

I was mad. I was always mad when my husband told me what I couldn’t do! On this particular day, because I had heard this too many times before, I stopped, maybe took a deep breath, and asked. “How do you know?!” 

There is little more I can say. Importantly, when I was told my eyes go flat, it stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t know what to do with that information, even though I knew my husband was right. Yes I was angry at him for knowing, but fighting back had never helped. As matter of fact, it possibly had put me over the seizure threshold. Those few words gave me something to hang on to, even though I didn’t know how to use them. I don’t know when I finally figured it out, but I learned that when I felt as though I were being drawn back from reality, that was my sign. And probably when my focus changed.