I am sixty-three and have had epilepsy since I was eight. Evidently (I don’t remember) I fell off a lumber pile on our farm. It was never known if I hit my head when I fell or had a seizure which made me fall off.
In 1962 very very little was known about epilepsy. Our family doctor worked with my folks at first. Then I was taken to a psychologist or psychiatrist. I had to put blocks in holes and so on.
My folks told me that one time people wanted to put me into a state hospital. They said no way and brought me up with no special attention. One of the doctors felt the seizures might be caused by allergies. I was tested and it was found I was allergic to house dust! LOL. Nothing else.
They suggested it might be the cow’s milk so suggested I drink some other kind of milk. My parents got a goat and it was my job to milk it, and everything else. It STUNK! The milk wasn’t much better—It was so much different from cow’s milk and had a smell to it. When she went dry we got rid of her and I went back to cow’s milk.
I was on the cross-country team in my senior year in high school. I came in tenth in the tryouts. Only fifteen were on the team. Only ten runners got track shoes. I got mine and it felt good that I did. I even asked the coach if I could have them. I couldn’t. My brother was on the team as well. I found out later my parents had asked him to get on so he could keep an eye on me. Then I was just glad he was on the team too. It never occurred to me that he was there for me.
People’s attitudes have changed since then. I had a seizure about thirteen years ago when I was waiting for a bus in the city my wife and I moved to. She wasn’t there but a woman tried to catch me but couldn’t. An ambulance was called and I woke up in the hospital with eleven stitches in my eyebrow which had been cut with the broken bow of my glasses.
Now they have magnetic imaging that can locate the place in the brain where seizures begin and can operate on it. I haven’t seen an article about how good it is. I was tested but there are so many spots where it might occur and they are so deep in my brain they would not be able to get them.
Now I am on Keppra and Lamictal and feel great. It has been about a year and six months since my last major seizure and I feel wonderful. I was on Dilantin for thirty years and others. My new doctor told me that Dilantin can leach the calcium from your bones so put me on Lamictal. Now instead of being doped up I am more alert and my supervisor told me I looked more alert.
