Personal Narrative: Post-Seizure Fatigue

Taking life one day at a time is all I can do and that is scary in and of itself. It’s beyond a battle to make the best of my life with chronic illness.

The year was 1861 and the first battle had already begun. The country was now divided as two teams, the confederates and the unions. I wasn’t looking forward to the upcoming battle that was about to happen. I sat in my tent in silence, thinking about what might happen. Starting to feel uneasy about this battle I grabbed my rifle for comfort. It felt weird that I look at my gun as a safe object. I laid back and sighed. I let my guard down for too long, I needed to get it up again.

As a child, high school seemed like a place that was miles away. Everything about it- with the exception of the graffitied bathroom stalls-lit up my eyes with the dream that I would one day be walking down its halls as a student. Although high school felt so far away, Montville High School itself was no stranger to me. When I was younger, my mom tortured me by sending me to the Chinese program held there every Sunday. I also used the school’s athletic facilities from joining the recreation track program, which I stopped going to after two weeks from discovering my antipathy for physical activity. From all of this, I quickly became familiar with what others would think as the overwhelming layout of the school. For some reason, I had always felt

Kayla Montgomery is worth admiring because she is still chasing her dream while being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. MS blocks nerve signals which causes her legs to go numb while running in the races. Kayla is one of the fastest long distance runners in the country and is a freshman on an athletic scholarships at Nashville’s Lipscomb University. With her condition, she has no feeling whatsoever while running when her body temperature gets higher and higher. People feel as if that isn 't fair- but when Kayla gets to the finish line, it then turns into a struggle. Her coach has caught her after every one of her meets, Kayla loses control and is unable to stop her legs until her body temperature lowers back to normal.

When I was in third grade, I was diagnosed with a medical condition that required me to go to Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh multiple times per month. It was boring, annoying, and sometimes painful. I never enjoyed going and that didn’t change as I got older. But when I just started going, I was very sick. Between the one hundred two-degree fever I had and the amount of blood they had to take out of me for tests, I felt miserable. Nothing there could comfort me. I was surrounded by white walls, and medical supplies in a room barely large enough for the bed and two chairs. This was before they built a new Children’s Hospital, though, which is filled with bright colors, beautiful murals with images of butterflies and flowers, and overall a more comfortable atmosphere.

I still have to miss school or activities to spend the day at a medical center to receive medication. Throughout my hospital stays, doctor visits, and sick stay-at-home-days, it was immensely difficult for me to be positive and optimistic for the

One night, I woke up to my sister screaming; her body was drenched in sweat, and she repeatedly said, “I can’t move my legs”. I was young then and didn’t understand what she meant. I slowly lifted the covers off of her legs. They looked perfectly normal to me, so I asked her to wiggle her toes. Thirty seconds went by, and no movement occurred; she says, “I really can’t move my legs”. My mom at this time was already freaking out and in tears. We rushed my sister to the hospital and found out that, the influenza she had for about a week now, was strongly attacking her immune system, causing her muscles to weaken. That night was the first time I slept at a hospital; my mom and I were by my sister’s side as she was flat on a hospital bed, plugged

My nerves were racing in my stomach to no end. I’m wondering if everything is ok? Will everything be as I planned? I couldn 't stop thinking what might happen. Thoughts were running wild as I thought about my team going on to play without me. I couldn 't figure out why I had to let the team handle the game without me. I had played with them all season and some for a few previous years and when they needed me the most, all I was able to do was watch from a TV. I hated the feeling of helplessness that I had, but at the same time I knew there was nothing I could do about it.

It was under the most delicate of circumstances, when I realized what I was born to do for

Day two clinicals. This day went so much smoother. I had the same two patient as the day before and one got discharged and I got a new patient. I feel like my second day I had an amazing relationship with my one patient. I got her to eat a little more that day because I knew what to talk to her about. When people are happier they tend to eat more than being depressed. She really enjoyed my company. Since she had a stage 4 pressure ulcer, they got an air mattress bed. We had to move her out of her old bed onto this new bed. In which I was worried about because she was bed bound. We had more than enough people to help me accomplish this. I had about seven people help with this process. I am very grateful for all the help I receive for this. I got to help you mess with the

Stomachaches have always been a huge part of my life. Everyone has them, but I think I’ve had more than the average kid. Throughout my childhood, I remember having numerous nights in pain and early morning vomit sessions. However, out of all of these memories there is one that was more terrifying than the others. One of the scariest days of my life was when I was admitted into the hospital because of a “stomachache.”

My interest in Epilepsy started before I even began to get seizures, for the reason that my uncle and aunt used to get seizures too and my mom would give me brief stories of them. I have relentlessly gotten on my computer just to research news on interesting subjects, including Epilepsy; through this I have gained a lot of knowledge on various topics, sadly I don’t take the time to memorize every bit of detail. But I have learned that there is no cure for Epilepsy, just treatments, is caused by abnormal brain waves, and can last from two years to a lifetime. So I conducted a survey to see how much people knew about Epilepsy and how many have had any previous experience dealing with it, and since it is a very common disorder that affects any

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” - World Health Organisation, 1946. Although there have been a number of ground breaking discoveries in science as a whole I strongly believe more can be done within neurology. Epilepsy affects more than 500,000 people in the UK that is almost one in every 100 people. I wish to study neuroscience as I would like to look into conditions such as this but also explore into neuroaesthetics. Having a close family member being diagnosed with epilepsy, I have been exposed to the fundamental importance of how to deal with seizures. Despite the fact that watching the slow deterioration has been agonising, I have also found it very captivating as to how such a complex organ can change to a degeneration condition. As a result of this personal experience, my desire to study neuroscience has increased.

Seeing her be so brave and fearless taught me to try until I fall. When the surgery was over, she was too weak to even stand. She had to start all over, from the bottom to the top. She didn’t have any strength, but knowing she was in control of her fate made her push herself for change. From sitting up to crawling, from crawling to standing, from standing to walking, from walking to running. Her strength grew day by day. We counted down the days, until we could go back home.

Pevzner was already in the Consult Room when we got there. She explained to us that you had a deathly allergic reaction to Levaquin, an antibiotic they had given you, and that you were being stabilized. Pevzner said that once you were stabilized, she would continue the surgery and remove your kidney stone. So she left, and Ryan and I sat there waiting for you. It was a couple hours before we could see you again. They had taken you to the ICU and had gotten you set up before we saw you. When we finally got to see you, you were so swollen and bruised that we hardly recognized you. Every couple hours or so a nurse would come in and give you more sedatives and allergy medicine and every single time you woke up and fought us because the allergy