Epilepsy in the Army

I was a health young Sergeant in the Army Honor Guard in Washington D.C. on the second day of leave for the first time in a year. I went to bed and woke up confused at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. I had had what they considered at the time a grand mal/generalized seizure. The next five years were spent desperately trying to stay in the military in order that I might continue the career that I so desperately wished to have. I was sent to Desert Storm, and then released on a medical discharge. My disability, 10% and no monthly compensation. Apparently a life changing disability like uncontrolled seizures does not rate the same as a knee injury.

After college, I moved to Washington D.C. and was sent to Johns Hopkins University Hospital Epilepsy Center by a neurologist who understood that they would be best able to take care of my seizures. After three stays in the epilepsy monitoring unit with the possibility of surgery on in the future, WADA testing, psych, eeg, grid and depth eeg's, etc., it was determined that my seizures were not generalized but partial complex. The seizures effected my heartrate however, dropping it to 30 bpm as soon as my seizures began. This effect made the seizures appear to be generalized. A pacemaker later and the effects are well dimished, but the seizures are still uncontroled as the findings of all the tests show that I was not a candidate for surgery.

So it is back to testing other medications, still not driving, and desperately finding an employer who understands that at times I will stare at them with a look of complex confusion and be lost for five or ten minutes but am still employable. And the hardest part is to explain to people that while I am a motivated worker, I am in fact disabled, when for the majority of my life I walk, talk, and act like the rest of the population. How is it that we are disabled when it comes to what we can be excluded from, but now the benefits that we should be entitled to?

What amazes me more than this is how well my family has dealt with all of this. I take things in stride for the most part. Joke about this, miss my meds with a casual sense that make my wife mad (she is a nurse), ride my bicycle on busy streets almost asking to run out in traffic, mostly because I know that I have to continue living my life. I don't do things that would, if I were to have a seizure, put others in jeopardy. My daughters, however, amaze me to an extreme that I can not explain. Nine and fifteen and when my wife is at work and I have had a seizure the nine year old answers the telephone and tells my wife, matter-of-factly, "Oh Daddy is sitting on the sofa, he's just had a seizure." I would like to think that I would have been able to do the same thing, but I doubt that I could have.

And then there are the doctors and scientist that work for us, trying to find a cure, medicines, surgeries, proceedures. I can not say enough about them. I shouldn't even try.