Thanks to neurological medical advancements, with medication, I have been Demon-free since October of 1992. (Not seizure free but demon free.) It has been the peace of heaven sleeping through the nights and working through my days with the ability to think rationally. I’ve become a functional, 3-dimensional human, no longer sitting on the fence between the seen and the unseen. No more violent hallucinations, voices or irritated skin sensations from the electrical short in my temporal lobes.
However, I am in the 10% of the epileptic population that will always have recurring seizures despite medication. The anti-seizure medications allow me to be unconscious when my temporal lobes short-circuit; with no hallucinations, voices or violence. They come and go with no particular pattern (aside from known triggers like.. extreme fatigue). The seizures are just a part of my life. Sometimes I lose days to them feeling shitty from the brain pain. Most times recovery is pretty quick..I could say each time is different but seizures are not who I am. Those horrific hallucinations are only stories now. It’s rare that I see the shadow of that life. Instead it’s now a book.
My challenges these days are far more entertaining. I’m learning how to be a 3-dimensional person in this world. It’s not as easy as it may sound. I’m blooming late in this life! I am blessed with MANY friends..each with unique relationships between us. So many levels and kinds of love, it’s dazzling, really. I am amazed by this world everyday… it’s lush strength and tenacity. I’ve seen the Rockies, the Pacific, the Atlantic, North, South, East and West of the US. I’m in love with this world. I’d like to be in Love, together, with a man. ..but that’s another book.
Back to the seizure part of my world; I’d like to say that I would go to any lengths to not have another seizure ever again… but that is only partly true. I am a stubborn person and I refuse, within reason, to let a possibility of seizures keep me from things I love to do (that may not be so good for me). I MUST; dance to live music, walk my dog in the woods, travel to either ocean, spin around my living room to an old Beatles song, have wild animal sex, stay up way too late so I can be with friends, eat dessert first, dangle my feet in a public fountain… so many ‘etc.’s. Life has taught me that even the endless seconds that make up our dullest day are fleeting… so, I want to fly and float in the updrafts of this life. I’ve earned the right.. to endless delight.
My neurologist once told me that she sees me as an impossibly delicate flower made out of steel. I think that sums it up.
