In the shadow of epilepsy
A daughter never got to experience her father walking her down the aisle on what was supposed to be the best day of her life.
A precious baby never got to celebrate his first birthday.
An excited bride got to enjoy only a few hours of her wedding day.
A young college student never got to finish her cross county running career.
A teenage girl never got to experience her first pumpkin spice latte.
Two parents had to bury their only child.
A senior in college was not able to walk across the stage to receive his diploma.
A teacher got only two years to mold the minds of elementary students.
A senior graduate’s dream of becoming a pilot never came true.
All these beautiful souls’ lives were cut short because of epilepsy.
Living in the shadows of epilepsy is like living in a constant nightmare. You never know when a seizure might strike. Can you imagine living a life with a silent killer lurking behind you?
Am I going to have a seizure today? Will I need to depend on a stranger to save my life? Will this stranger know what to do if I’m having a seizure?
Did I take my medication today? Will a side effect from my medication interfere with my day? If I have a seizure, will it last longer than five minutes?
Will I hit my head? Will I bust a tooth? Did I get enough sleep last night? Will this be my last day on Earth? When I go to bed, will I wake up the next morning? The fear of the unknown is horrendous and non-stop.
Why is it that when breast cancer awareness month comes to an end, it still gets acknowledged. But when epilepsy awareness month comes to an end, no one advocates for it.
Most people don’t apprehend how deadly epilepsy is and that it takes more lives than breast cancer does. So, if epilepsy kills more people than breast cancer, why aren’t they being treated justly? What’s the difference between epilepsy and cancer? They both have treatments with bad side effects, and both diagnoses can be too late.
If anyone sees a difference, I would love to hear it.
Each year, the National Institutes of Health spends $30 billion on medical research, but just one-half of 1 percent is spent on epilepsy. That’s right, only one-half of 1 percent. One in every 26 Americans have epilepsy, which adds up to 3.4 million people, so chances are you’ve met multiple people living with epilepsy.
Please, help us end this silent epidemic and support epilepsy awareness.
I’ll leave you with a quote from a famous person who lived with epilepsy.
“People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don’t have any idea what causes epilepsy. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it’s divine. And so it is with everything in the universe.”
— Hippocrates
Sienna Paoni of Girard, Kan., was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 14. She is in her final semester of nursing school.
This story was originally published March 28, 2018 at 4:13 PM with the headline "In the shadow of epilepsy."