My first seizure (the beginning of my epilepsy) happened when I was less than a year old. I was about ten months old at the time. It was the morning of my mom's first mother's day and also her birthday. My mom woke up to the sound of a rattling noise coming from my room. I was having my first seizure, I was shaking like crazy, my temperature was extremely high. My parents first tried to put me in a cold bath to cool me down but it didn't have any effect and rushed me to the emergency room. That is as much as I remember my parents telling me but I wouldn't be surprised if it took a few days and a few blood tests to officially declare it as Epilepsy.
After that years went by and epilepsy created a lot of difficulties that got in the way of me running a normal life. I don't remember having a seizure at school in my young years but I do remember having one in high school. But that is high school for you. College was a different story though. Epilepsy got in the way of my academics so much that I had to leave without graduation.
All epileptics including myself have difficult explaining what it feels like during a seizure. However I recently wrote a song with lyrics that I feel attempt to describe it called In The Daze, you can view it at My Songs Webpage. The reaction to it is weird. Half the non-epileptic people who hear or look at the lyrics don't understand it at all but there are some that can get a slight idea from it though. Some have even told me it makes no sense. The Epileptic people though say it explains it perfectly.
I've had many injuries as results of seizure. Everything from cut and bruises to burns. I feel off my bed during a seizure once and my leg landed on a room heater and I had to have a skin graft at Shriners Burns Hospital.
I am one of the rare cases where epilepsy has been almost cured by brain surgery. I used to have five to ten seizures a week and then had brain surgery on September 19th 2005 and I haven't had one since. I'm still medically considered to be epileptic but I have been seizure free for a while.
I'm not good at giving info about how epilepsy works The best I can do is suggest looking at the homepage of The Epilepsy Foundation of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I would also recommend if you have a kid with epilepsy sign the up for the summer program Camp Wee-Kan-Tu. It is mostly a typical summer camp environment but it helps kids deal with the emotional difficulties of epilepsy as well.
