Back to square1 - but what is it?

Yesterday, I had my first seizure in about 3 years, so it was back to square one. But it's not quite the drama as the only other time I had been longer seizure free.
The only time I have been seizure free for a longer period of time, I had a career, a pension, a flat, a car and a life I saw myself living 30 years down the line. All of that disappeared when I had a seizure out of the blue in Glasgow's City Centre, where I worked as a Police Constable.

But yesterday was different...

I feel bad for giving my friends James and Jamie such a shock, as I had it while we were chatting, but despite the banging noise down the line, the confusion of who I was speaking to and the drowsiness afterwards, I explained that actually I wasn't in any pain. I never am during a seizure.

What was different about yesterday is that absolutely nothing changed in my life after I had the seizure. I went to sleep pretty quickly afterwards, sure. But when I woke up, I got on with life as if I hadn't had a seizure at all.

There's a reason why I say to people I ride my bike, that I wouldn't get my driving license back. That I wouldn't have a job where I would need to change my life from what it is now. It's because, should I have a seizure like yesterday, I wouldn't need to change it back.
When I live my life with precautions, 3 years after my last seizure I sometimes think, well why am I still doing things like this? Why am I still wearing my medical bracelet? Why don't I just have a nice bath?
Well, it's days like yesterday that make me glad I don't.

So to me, it makes sense that, rather than save up for a car, I save up for a bike. There are draw backs obviously - It doesn't have a boot, I can't carry passengers and it's not the best form of transport for long distance journeys, but then again, it's mine and it's freedom.


The way I look at my life is first of all to live it. But then I also look at it, as if tomorrow is when I could have my next seizure. I think if I live like that, then if I do have a seizure, I can always get on with my life, with the same effect as a stomach bug would have on me and in all likelihood, probably less.

There seems to be a lot of drama around epilepsy, it's unknown, scary, it has severe side effects. Except that a lot of the time it doesn't. For me it's not sore, it's not scary to me because I know it, it's just part of my life.


Epilepsy is only severe if you let it be, if you don't take the precautions.
....If you do however, it's just another part of you.