Owning My Disabilities
The Journey I was diagnosed with epilepsy more than twenty years ago and continued to have seizures about once every six months. In August 2014, I had a grand mal seizure and tumbled down concrete stairs. That is when my life changed forever. Instead of one every six months, it increased to four to six every week. In 2015, after medical testing, I was told I had two types of seizures. I have both grand mal seizures and focal onset impaired awareness seizures. From 2015 to 2016, I spent a lot of time in the hospital for weeks. I had to go through numerous tests and sleep studies to help determine where in the brain my epilepsy was occurring and why. The tests showed that the seizures were happening on the right side of my brain. The primary seizures I have are focal-onset impaired awareness. This type of seizure is characterized by periods of blackouts. Your body may still be functioning normally and performing its tasks. But you will be unaware of what you are doing. For example,...