Today is my birthday. I realize that I have one every year, but I have always tended to reflect on February 6^th instead. As I’ve mentioned before, the day before my 14^th birthday was my first witnessed seizure. I haven’t really thought about it that much though in the last few years. I’ve gone out for dinner, I’ve celebrated, I’ve done a number of things. That first seizure seemed so far away (and was getting further every year). I kind of just stopped associating my birthday with that event.

Of course, this year is different. Three weeks ago, I had a seizure. A big one. One that resulted in a concussion and other medical complications. Suddenly I have to think about absolutely everything again. What I am able to do and not able to do. The limitations that I had forgotten about. That it is actually remarkable (according to my previous neurologists) that I have lived this long, been this physical, been this cognitive.

I remember that I was combative and teenage-aggressive with my first neurologist who effectually told me that I would never have a normal life. I was going to prove him wrong. Really, I did. I would even go so far as to say I’ve had a lot of pretty remarkable experiences and things that have been more than just a “normal life”. As time went on, I was just so used to having seizures and being aware that it didn’t emotionally impact me. It simply was. I am epileptic. I have seizures. I have to take precautions. I had the facility to be flippant on occasions about it (maybe more often than I should have been) because I was so used to it.

Then the five years happened. The safe five years. The five years where I gradually moved away from the limitations, where I stopped thinking about the condition, where I thought even maybe that it was going away. Somehow, since it started when I just started being a teenager, now because I am older maybe it is working itself out of my system. I stayed up later than I would have previously while reading a book I just couldn’t put down. I challenged myself even more physically. Things happened that were emotionally stressful that were out of my control but I didn’t blink an eye about it. The safe five years (and three months).

Now, it’s my birthday and suddenly I am so confused about how I feel. Not about my birthday (like I said, I get one every year). Just that, when I was 14, I only had limited experiences as a child and youth to go back to where I was not having seizures, which I barely remembered or thought about. Between then and 2020, I was so used to it, I wasn’t terribly upset after a seizure. This is like starting over again, but this time I have the knowledge of what life is like without epilepsy. Knowing what I could have, what I temporarily had, what was my life for a short time and now suddenly I have to live this again. This is harder than it was when it first started, and harder than it was when it was frequent.

It is different, and it is not different. I know what that “normal” life is like. I don’t know why I had five whole years, but that was pretty great. Now, I still know what life is like as an epileptic. There are reasonable limitations and then there are ones I am choosing to ignore.

The first time I did public speaking about epilepsy and athletics, I was super nervous and blurted something out at the end. In retrospect, I stood by that solidly, even though I was still having seizures. Now, it is my own reminder on how I am going to move forward. I am epileptic. I have seizures. And:

“Epilepsy is just a [expletive] inconvenience”