Life – Jesika

Ever since I was born, I had absence seizures. When I was a kid, I would sometimes know when it will happen because to me it had felt like a rock hitting my head really hard. As I was growing up, the doctors said I might grow out of it. In 2013, my freshmen year, I had one while sleeping and I woke up from the neck down paralyzed for an hour with no one by my side or near me. Even with medicine I still have small seizures. So what I do is, try to live life as best I can because I know that epilepsy can harm or kill if it’s really bad. I got upset when people would say things such as “Are these lights bothering you?” or “Why can’t you do haunted houses? Because you have seizures? But your taking medicine for it right?” I try my best to explain what to do when it happens and explain what type I have to them. I had explained it as it is like daydreaming, staring off to space only I don’t respond and I would sort of come back and sometimes a person doesn’t notice then ask me a question and when I come back, I reply to them like nothing happened and I have a small headache. But I work, I make sure my friends and boyfriend and workmates all know what to do when something like this happens. I got scared after being paralyzed for an hour that year.