Epilepsy and Me: Living with Epilepsy and Brain Surgery Recovery

Before having epilepsy, my life was okay. I went to work every day, and I could sleep without worrying about having a seizure. Things were pretty normal. But in 2013, I was in a car accident, and from there, my life turned upside down. After the accident, things seemed normal until one day at a church service, I woke up and didn’t realize what had happened. My aunt told me I had a seizure, and five minutes later, I had another one. This time, I went to the bathroom on myself. It started happening regularly, and I was only 23 years old. I didn’t understand what was going on.

Before that, my biggest health problem was asthma, but I could always manage it. That day, I had six seizures within one hour. I saw a specialist, but they couldn’t figure out what was going on. Over the next month, I would have up to seven seizures per day. Every time I had a seizure, I would pass out and lose control of my bladder. During this time, I had a five-year-old child, but I couldn’t remember much because of the uncontrollable shaking. I thank God for the members of my church because they began helping to take care of me when I lost my job due to my illness.

My doctor eventually put me on four different medications, which left me completely knocked out, not even recognizing what happened during the day. That year, 2013, is a complete blank to me. I don’t remember much of what happened, even in November of that year. My neurologist asked me if I wanted surgery to stop the seizures. By this point, I had nothing left to lose. They wanted to remove the triangle part of the focal part of my brain. I immediately said yes because I was no longer able to take care of myself or my child.

On December 7, 2013, at 5 a.m., I went into surgery at the University of Pennsylvania for brain surgery. It took me six months to recover, and I was on eight different medications. By 2014, I began regaining parts of my life. I had to go to physical therapy to regain strength in my legs due to the surgery. Since then, I’ve gone to college twice and earned my associate degree. While my seizures are not as frequent as they were before—frankly, they are nonexistent—I have not had a seizure in two years.

The side effect of the surgery is that I tend to forget things, and I still have to take my seizure medication daily, but I am very grateful to be alive. I know individuals who had as many seizures as I did, and they are not able to take care of themselves, walk, or talk. But I am alive, I am able to talk, and I can take care of my children. This is my story of epilepsy and me. I thank God for the people who performed the surgery and those who cared for me when I couldn’t take care of myself. Thank you for reading my story.