Living with Epilepsy from the Mid 20th Century

I have had epilepsy now since the mid twentieth century.

My first seizure was in 1956 when I was very young. My mother thought I was dying.

The following year, while on holiday with my parents in France, I was admitted into a hospital in Nice after experiencing a second seizure. It was there they found scaring on my temporal lobe.

The following years I was admitted to hospital for many weeks, so much that I used to call hospital my second home. I was given many painful tests, most that have now been terminated or given anesthetic beforehand.

The impact of my epilepsy on my family

As my father had been wounded during the war he naturally had no patience to have a sick child. However, the seizures were eventually put under control.

I went away to school for two and a half years until I was age 14. The seizures returned one night while at the school. For this reason, I had to leave the school, although if I had still stayed on, I would not have met my future husband when attending another school.

During my late teens I was put on medication by a German neurologist which controlled the seizures allowing me to take a secretarial course, and a five month exchange visit in Spain. However, I was not allowed to join the family on many outings- which I have only recently been informed by my older brother that my father would tell my brothers how difficult I had been, as my father would get angry after I experienced a seizure.

Not realizing that, I had overheard the doctor mention to my mother that the only treatment left was to have a brain operation.

In those days, such an operation was practically unheard of and only possible at one hospital in the UK. I managed to ignore my father’s continuous anger at me after having a seizure but not when I was left out of family reunions which is now what my older brother does.

Marriage, motherhood, and more

I was 21 yrs of age when I married.

The following year I was not able to carry an unborn without getting continual seizures so I decided to go ahead with the operation to remove some of the deceased scarring tissue, one being my left side vision. It was during attending the clinic after the operation was I informed that my scarring was due to measles which I had aged 4 yrs of age.

After the operation, I was free of seizures for nearly three years. By then I was holding our first child.

The seizures continued, about two per month, until I reached menopause. I don’t get so many anymore and what I do get I can usually control.

Although my dear husband passed away 11 years ago, I now go abroad on holiday and try to enjoy life.