I was helping a co-worker with an assignment for school the other day about neurological disorders. I started thinking about the conversation we had and I asked her for a copy of the recorded interview. Even though it was pretty slow and awkward at first, as most interviews are, it started to pick up and she actually started to get interested in the topic past what she needed for her assignment.
Q: So… You have seizures?
A: Yeah, occasionally I turn into the world’s worst breakdancer. It’s not the most entertaining thing for anybody to experience and I definitely wouldn’t recommend it.
Q: Do you have them a lot?
A: Not really. I probably average around three a year tops. That’s a lot for someone without a seizure disorder, but it’s pretty mild. There are some people who have three an hour so I’d consider myself to be pretty lucky.
Q: What are they like?
A: Well, I actually have two kinds. I have the ‘traditional’ kind that most people think of when they hear the word “seizure”. You know, the whole body falls to the ground, gets kinda twitchy and, according to my parents, bloody. Not the prettiest way to spend the night. But I also have a kind that’s pretty much the exact opposite. Where the first kind is everything firing all at once, the other kind is everything stopping. The last time I had one, I was on the phone with my mom while I was away at school and according to her, I was talking completely normally, then just stopped in the middle of a word and wouldn’t answer her for a couple of minutes. After a bit, I just came back and kept talking as if nothing happened.
Q: Which do you think is scarier?
A: They’re both scary in their own ways. The first kind is scary because of the potential risks you can face when you have one. There’s just so much room for injury when you have one like that. I was laying on my bed and had one, but still managed to fall off and land on a toolbox. But the other ones are scarier in that unless I’m around someone or talking to someone, I wouldn’t know that I had it and that’s terrifying to me. Like, imagine just sitting in your room on the computer or something, then going into a seizure for a few minutes and coming out of it without even knowing. Freaky. At least with the first kind you know when it happens because you feel like death afterward.
Q: If they only last for a couple of minutes, how can they really hurt that bad? I mean, you can’t really get too injured in a matter of minutes, can you? Unless you’re, like, driving a car or something.
A: That depends. The seizure itself, if it lasts five minutes or longer, can cause some brain damage. That’s why when you see someone going into a seizure it’s important to time it, or at least try to. A one-minute seizure is going to do a lot less damage than a five-minute seizure. As for the potential injuries caused by the seizures, they can still get pretty bad. Most people have gotten their fair share of bruises and cuts from seizures.
I have a permanently dislocated shoulder from having multiple seizures in the shower, my arms have gotten bruised pretty bad at some points. My tongue is scarred on the sides because when I have them my jaw slams shut and gnaws on it. This leads to a steady stream of blood that usually comes from my mouth. Headaches are usually a requirement when you have one because of its firing everything off all at once as hard as it can go for several minutes. Then there’s muscular strain and fatigue from constant flexing and relaxing of every muscle in the body. So yeah, it can be a long three minutes.
Q: What have the worst injuries you’ve ever had been?
A: The dislocated shoulder was pretty bad, I can’t play contact sports anymore so that’s a bummer. Luckily I’ve never suffered anything very serious. No broken bones or anything. Just a bloody tongue and a headache is usually all that happens, maybe a bruise if I fall in the wrong place.
Q: Why do you seem so chill about it? At first I didn’t think you were serious because you were just joking around about it all. It seems like something most people would take to heart and not want to consider a joke.
A: I don’t really consider it too much of a joke in reality. If people make fun of it or make seizure jokes, I do get a little offended. In my case, I do it as a kind of coping mechanism. When I was originally diagnosed, I kinda had two options. Take it dead serious, never talk about it and pretend it’s only happening when I need to. Or accept that it’s a part of me and make the best of it. Option B sounded a lot better both for my mental health and just in general.
I was able to joke about it, yeah, but I was also able to do research papers and speeches on it for school to spread knowledge and information about what it actually is as opposed to how it’s shown on TV or movies. I do take it seriously when I’m in the doctors office or talking about it with family, but if I’m out with friends and something comes up, I might crack a joke. It’s better to have a laugh than be sad.
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