Living with Epilepsy: How It Changed My Life: Part 1

I've come a long way since my first encounter with something I would have to live with for the rest of my life.

I was a normal child that enjoyed everything that every child would. Playing outside in the mud, with toys, or even playing with other children that you would meet in the park during the day. I made lots of friends in school and did the best I could to get the highest grades possible. I wanted to grow up and do the best I could in life. I wanted to go to college and earn a degree in my dream job in the field of engineering. I wanted to show my parents the potential I had to achieve whatever I set my mind to.

But one day in 2009, it had all changed. My brother, who was already in college, had moved out to pursue his education. But on Christmas/New Year's Eve of 2008, he had decided to stay over at our house to celebrate the holidays.

Christmas was great, and the New Year of 2009 came in with a hopeful start. After all, I was almost finished with elementary school and would be moving on to middle school. I had straight A's in all my classes and would be officially passing the school year with a streak of A Honor Roll in all grades if I were to continue my excellent academic progress this year. But it was not as easy as I thought it would be.

Once 2009 had officially begun, I was so excited to see what was in store for me. I wondered what new kinds of people I would meet, the new places I might visit, and how it would be to complete the school year with one of the highest GPA's in the school district. But on the early morning of the eleventh of January, 2009, terror had struck.

I had decided to take my mattress in the living room near the couch where my brother had been sleeping during his stay. I had decided to sleep in the living room that night to spend the last days of my Christmas vacation with my brother before he went back to college. But strangely, I had woken up in the middle of my sleep inside an ambulance truck with an oxygen mask over my face. Confused, I began to question myself. I looked at my arms and felt my chest. I checked my head and found it to be sensitive to touch.

I started panicking as I heard my parents talking to someone. "He just started shaking uncontrollably, his eyes rolled back, and his body became stiff as a board." I couldn't believe it, 'It must be a bad dream,' I thought to myself; 'Yes, it has to be.' In fear, I began to try and awake myself, I felt as if I couldn't breathe. I reached to grab the mask on my face and pull it off. But as I tried to do so, an unfamiliar voice came from behind me, "Don't do that bud, you need that to breathe."

"What do you mean I need it to breathe?" My voice trembled and shook as I tried to speak each word. "You had a seizure son, your parents called the ambulance after your brother had noticed you shaking violently in your bed." The medic spoke to me in a stern tone, he did not sugarcoat anything to me. He continued: "The oxygen you are receiving now had awoken you from an unconscious state. Your parents said you were not waking up to them calling you."

Being notified, my parents walked into the truck and saw me lying on the stretcher. My mother had tears running down her face and my dad looked extremely worried. "We are going to the hospital they said," holding back tears. I did not want to go, I did not like hospitals. I wanted to stay home. But my parents began to explain again, "We don't know what is going on in your brain, we don't know if you have something wrong with you. We have to go to the hospital to make sure you are not in danger."

I began to cry and clutch my parent's hands realizing the possibility of dangerous head trauma. "I don't want to die," I said to my parents as they got seated in the truck.