Hi All,
It was Interesting to read all your life stories with epilepsy.
I fear I seem to have had the longest experience with epilepsy as I have had epilepsy since 1956 but off and on so have experienced a lot of change.
The first seizure started in 1956 after four years of hallucinations due to having a very high temperature with measles; I had to wait until 1979 to be informed that the diseased scarring on my temporal lobe was the cause of a childhood illness. I have experienced so many different seizures throughout my life when there was not a handful of AEDs and being not that long after World War 11 it was a matter of, ‘We all have our problems’. There was little understanding about epilepsy in the fifties when I found the older generation full of stigma if one had had any disability compared to my generation and I felt I was teaching the Consultants, not vice versa. However, after many visits, two weeks at a time, in hospital they managed to control the seizures. I went away to school but had to leave the school after two and half years when the seizures returned. I then attended another school that was nearer to where my parents lived. Despite this I did an exchange visit with a Spanish young lady and took a secretarial course so I was able to find work in London where I met my dear late husband. In 1970 I had an operation to remove some of the scarring when such an operation was the talk of the town as there was only one hospital in the UK where one had such an operation which was performed manually The seizures stopped for nearly three years when I was able to have my first child when the seizures returned but I still had a further son. Both are now married with a family of their own. I now live alone and the seizures are not nearly so severe.
