Epilepsy and Crisis: My Journey of Darkness Turns into a Miracle

By Gloria Rivera

Epilepsy comes from the Greeks. It is a word that means to possess, seize, or hold. Epilepsy is described as short-lived burst of uncontrolled energy in the brain. Epilepsy is a neurologic disorder that affects the brain. 1. Help bring epilepsy out of the world of darkness. 2. Be part of the epilepsy awareness. 3. Epilepsy is one of those disabilities that doesn’t get the proper attention. 4. Adults and children living with epilepsy deserve to be treated fairly and with respect. 5. Children with epilepsy must have the right to receive special education and not be put out of school because of their epilepsy. 6. People with epilepsy are on the road to recovery and success. 7. People with epilepsy must be treated fairly and with respect. 8. Raise awareness for the epilepsy community. 9. Aim and focus high at finding a cure for epilepsy. 10. Get the word out on finding a cure for epilepsy. 11. Create a partnership with family and friends living with epilepsy. 12. New treatments and new hope for people throughout the epilepsy community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635689778

Book preview

What Is Epilepsy?

Epilepsy is a brain disorder that is treatable. It describes short-lived bursts of uncontrolled energy in the brain. The brain is like a computer; it even runs on electrical current. The signals in the brain are very small, but they are enough for one neuron. A type of nerve cell in the brain seizure is a description of what happens when the cells misfire. Basically this means that a large group of neurons misfire. This also means a temporary short circuit of the brain. The misfire occurs for different reasons in patients with epilepsy. Sometimes stress, not eating right, or lack of sleep may lead to a neuron misfire. When routine firings are excessively altered, a seizure will strike the brain, like a lack of oxygen that doesn’t travel to the brain. The brain acts like a telephone line allowing the brain to send signals to the rest of the body, and the doctors say that the most important tool for epilepsy is the medicine, and there’s a device that directly measures electric activity, and it is attached to the patients’ head. And different patterns of activity are spotted on the scalp. People with epilepsy commonly show uneven activity or large changes in the voltage of the brain waves. There’s not only one type of epilepsy—there are over one hundred types of epilepsy.

For few people, flickering lights and sounds can be triggers for seizures three of the most common things are flickering lights and video games and television if flickers affected you you’ll want to avoid these sources and a another problem might be caused by shadows and lights outdoors, it would be great to avoid stress in the first place.

What Is an Aura?

An aura is that some people before a seizure sense an aura. An aura is a strange sensation or feeling. That some people have before a seizure that could be buzzing in the ears. Dizziness, fear or a powerful emotion. In fact, it happens just before a seizure. It’s an unexplained feeling of fear and it’s an early warning that a seizure is about to come a seizure can happen at anytime. Without warning you can tell that the seizure is about to strike you, you could see things that are not there and you could hear voices around you that are not there you can feel scared when people talk around you and it makes the person very weak and it lowers the ability of understanding for about three to five minutes flickering lights and loud sounds can be triggers for seizures and it’s about to strike. The aura is the fact that is the start of the seizure before it spreads to other areas it includes a feeling of fear and bad taste to the mouth and also odd smell too. People who have this warning often must have time to move away from any hazardous things like a stove because sometimes the seizure strike too fast. It includes drowsiness, fatigue, nausea, dizzying, and change in vision and breathing. That is a warning letting the person know that a seizure is about to strike you.

When Epilepsy Came into My Life

When epilepsy came into my life, my heart was full of fear and weakness, and I felt that my strength had died both day and night. I felt that my life was falling into pieces, and living in a life full of doubt, fear, and only negative thoughts would roll through my mind. My strength and my courage were discomforting and weak. The only things I could conquer and achieve were fear and disbelief, because every time I fell into a seizure, I felt I was in a dark valley of deep misery, despair, loneliness, bitterness, and sorrow, but my life was with a heart and mind filled with hurt, fear, and worries. Each day was with discomfort, and I had no confidence or interest in my life. I felt each seizure was like a special call from hell, and crossing a bridge of doubts, fear, and weakness, and living a life of delusion, doubt, and loneliness, and my mind was out of control, and my heart was in a heavy grief that I felt that my life was taken away. I never had peace in my life. Just thinking when a seizure would strike, and leaving me without hope in my life, and I felt that my life was disappearing, and I wasn’t ever going to see the light. A whole day in discomfort, with the same challenges, trying my best. I couldn’t defeat the seizures, but the seizures always defeated me, like I traveling on a long journey without an end.

The hospital visits started to get rough, and my epilepsy would seem to stay, and my epilepsy started to worsen, and I never knew when the seizure was going to strike. Yet I struggled through my tears and stayed in the hospital, afraid of what would be next. If I just could hold on for in the midst of pain and tears, the darkness turns to fear, and there’s an empty place in my heart, troubled and full of discontentment, and I coped with the pain and the strife and always living an unsuccessful life. In times of fear and sorrow, I tried to share my fears and troubles in darkness. I’ve been a source of disgrace throughout the years, and I’ve been so ungrateful for the friends I never had. In times of pain and sorrow, I’ve always been a source of displeasure for family and friends throughout the years, each moment, each minute, and each hour. Through days of my life in the darkness, through dark days filled with pain, sorrow, grief, and strife, I cried and saw the world through tears of fear and discomfort. They fill my eyes. They’ve made the way quite dark in trying to overcome the obstacles that I was facing in life. My friends and family fell apart, and at times through my tears I tried to smile through the dark path. I was always separated from family and friends and living in shadows of darkness and death.

By the age of seven, I was diagnosed with petite mal seizures that lasted about two to three minutes per seizure. This was just the beginning of my life in hell. A hallway of somber and sadness and walking a long dark passage, and my courage, strength, and hope were gone. At the age of ten, I was diagnosed with grand mal seizures, a few seconds to a minute or two in my childhood, which had both a positive and negative role, while most seizures lasted two to three minutes per seizures. Then at the age of twelve, I started to worsen. The seizures were five to six times a day from ten to thirteen hours per seizure, and I had times when I had emotional and behavioral consequences as well and while in school. The teacher didn’t try to help me create a positive atmosphere among other students or teachers, and other students would not support me but make fun of me while the school was clearly important to me. I think that students with epilepsy should succeed in school life, but because of my epilepsy, I was put out of school by the school board.

So when the school board put me out of school, which left me in tears, fear, and sadness, there was an empty space in my heart. I was very confused and in doubt, and in discontentment, which left me uncheerful and in a dark life. But no teacher understood me, and my path was narrow, and there was no room for me at any school, and that wasn’t pleasing to me. No teacher gave me any support when I faced the dark and the unknown. When I had to walk away from school, my trials were narrow roads that were very creepy, and my life was only tears of fear and troubles and strife, and more complication began to arise. I felt delusion, doubt, and loneliness, and my mind was way out of control, and my heart was in heavy grief that I felt my life was taken away and that peace would never come and that the hope in my life was disappearing and I was never going to be cured or I would never see the light shine to see my life in a valley below a deep dark field of darkness, loneliness, bitterness, and sadness. I only fought a battle of darkness.

In living a life of delusion, doubt, and loneliness, my mind and heart were out of control, and my heart was in a heavy grief that seemed to take my life away, and I felt peace would never come. To my life, the seizures would never leave me, and I felt that my hope and my life were disappearing and the seizures wouldn’t leave me. I couldn’t defeat the seizures as the seizures always defeated me. The visits to the hospital were very rough, and my epilepsy would seem to stay, and my seizures started to worsen. Not knowing when the seizure was going to come and with the dark days, I felt discouraged and down and living in a life of fire and discomfort, discouragement, and fear. I woke up every morning sad, weary, full of pain, sorrow, and with a broken heart, and my mind was filled with worry and all the things that caused my tears. I tried to seek a path of light but only found ways of darkness, fear, grief, and sadness, and the darkness would always overshadow me and leave me nervous because the seizures were endless.

And not knowing when the seizure would strike again after coming out of the seizure. I would be very confused and unable to interact with others after the seizure. I was unaware of where I was or what I was doing at the time. The seizure started or at what time the seizure ended after the seizure I had. Severe headaches and the confusion lasted more than one hour.

No One Knows

My Agonizing Pain

No one knows my agonizing pain. To my family and friends, nobody knows the heavy grief and agonizing and depressive pain, bitterness, loneliness, and sadness that I suffered for thirty-nine years. At the age of three, I started to have seizures. The seizures were about two to three times a day. Each seizure lasted about two to three minutes per seizure. At the age of six, complications began to arise. The seizures were three to six times a day and five to ten minutes per seizure. At the age of seven to eight, I was diagnosed with petite mal seizures that lasted about three to six minutes per seizure three to five times a day. This was just the beginning of my life in hell. At the age of ten, I was diagnosed with grand mal seizures. One seizure would last a period of ten hours. After coming out of a seizure, I would feel very dizzy and confused, and there were times I didn’t remember where I was or who the people were around me. I had to wait about thirty minutes so my mind would be back to normal and clear.

When a person loses interest in everything in their life, they fall into a dark world of depression, in which there’s only sadness, loneliness, bitterness, and a painful life. There were times in my life I was only living in frustration and full of torment and also being rejected mainly by doctors, friends, and family members. My personality was a mess because of my emotional condition, and the doctors that were treating me at the time were destroying my life because they had me an overdose of medication, but the doctors didn’t want to realize that due to the overdose of medication, the seizures started to worsen, and they didn’t realize that when a medication doesn’t work on a patient, they must try a new medication, and when a person gets out of control and gets violent, the patient should be put on new medication. Panic came into my life because I was scared every time I fell into a seizure, or had a crisis, due to the overdose of medication.

At the age of twelve to sixteen years old, the seizures started to worsen. I started living in discomfort, discouragement, fear, and an extreme state of depression. I felt like I had fallen into a ditch, but I couldn’t get out of the ditch and the ditch started to get deeper and deeper. My epilepsy started to worsen, and I didn’t know when the seizure was going to strike me. I started to have seizures five to six times a day and ten to thirteen hours per seizure, so I lived a life of delusion, doubt, fear, sadness, and loneliness. I fought a battle of darkness and felt that my heart was breaking into pieces, and my mind got out of control. This was just the beginning of my life in hell with sadness. I was somber and walking a long, dark path, and I felt that my hope, courage, strength, and faith were gone. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was in the midst of pain and tears, and the darkness turned into fear. There was an empty space in my heart. I was full of discontentment, bitterness, doubt, and sorrow and living an ungrateful life.

Living in anger and violence, my mother was always asking the doctor, What is the diagnosis on my daughter? but the doctor would answer my mother, I can’t find anything wrong with Gloria. She’s just faking everything. Those words were very painful