As a child, I don't remember that much about my early childhood, but as I grew to my teens, I do recall brief memory lapses and unexplained bruises. My grandparents raised me due to mitigating circumstances, and as an only child I was a bit spoiled by the both of them. Due to their age, they were unaware of epilepsy and may have not seen the signs of any possible seizure activity.

In the 1960's, even my teachers related my condition to behavioral problems with report cards that read, "doesn't pay attention in class, talk too much, preoccupied with other things, and disrupts the other students with frequent outbursts." I love that one. After obtaining my drivers licence at sixteen, I began to have quite a lot of

fender benders, unusually more, and lost my driver's licence temporarily due to too many tickets for accicents with the court ordering me to go to defensive driving school. I went for six weeks without a car as I sat through classes on better driving techniques, but I knew I was a betterdriver although my nickname in school

became "crash." Something was happening to me, but I couldn't explain it.

I attended college for a couple of semesters when I began having a lot of pain in my abdominal area and had to withdraw from classes. The pain got better for a while until I got married and began trying to start a family. I went to a ob-gyn, and was briefly hospitalized to do tests, biopsies, and control the pain. The result was a diagnosis of endometriosis and the treatment prescribed devastated me. I was to be scheduled for a total hysterectomy as soon as possible, but I just couldn't deal with never being able to have children, and opted to have only one side of my female organs surgically removed so that I still had a chance at becoming a mother. The surgery took longer than normal. As the operating nurses came out of the OR, they pulled my husband to the side to tell him of the devastatingly close call that happened while I was under anesthesia. I had stopped breathing due to too much medication I was given,

and my heart stopped twice.

Two weeks later, I came home from the hospital to recover and think about what had happened to me. It was July, and another four weeks had gone by as I began to feel good enough to get out of the house for a while. We had a large figure-eight swimming pool in back of a cabin that was situated as far back in the woods as you could get, and the heat in Georgia on a July day is sweltering so I went for a swim. I had invited a girl from work over with her two children, and we were having a great time when suddenly, my eyes felt as though they were trying to roll back into my head, and I yelled out or something within me felt like it had taken over my mind and body, and darkness pulled me in. The next thing I remember was a man named Robert was there, who was scheduled to come the following day to fix the brakes on my car, but he had gotten off of work early deciding to come over and work on my car a day early. He was carrying me from the swimming pool where I was floating face down. He had given me CPR since the girl and her children left as soon as he got there. They had not even called 911, and I haven't seen them since that day. His mother had seizures too so he stayed to watch after me in case I seized again. I did. I got up from the couch where he had laid me, and I stumbled out the door, crawled onto the porch railing and fell face first onto a concrete sidewalk. I began having another tonic-clonic seizure, and was injured by the fall. I hit the ground so hard, I knocked my toenail off my big toe, and dislocated my shoulder as well as all the skin that had been scraped off, now bleeding. He took me to the hospital due to the frequency and duration of my seizures, and I am thankful because this man saved my life. I saw him again about a month later when he came over to see my husband and to see how I was doing. When he asked, I told him I had fallen over my dogs and fell off the steps, not knowing what had happened to me that day. He sat down and ate dinner with us explaining what he had seen; he told my husband and I he had pulled me out of the pool where I was drowning as a girl and her two boys stood there in fear, and as he resuscitated me, they left. He finished telling my husband and I as we sat there in horror. I was more in disbelief since I didn't remember anything like that, not recalling anything at all. I suppose that's why I made up details to explain what I thought happened that day, but for a long time I was still in denial.

It wasn't until I spent three months at the epilepsy clinic at the Medical College of Ga. hooked up to EEG leads 24hours a day/7 days a week with a camera attached above my bed watching myself have seizures. This was my wake-up call. I have come to terms with the lifestyle changes, but it wasn't and still isn't an easy process. Your whole life changes, from the way you see the world to the way the world sees you. I have lost a lot, but I have also gained a lot of what in life really matters. I have found my calling as a writer, as well as gone back to college at 38 for a double major in Nursing and Psychology. I find that writing is cathartic in many ways, and we are all storytellers at heart or we wouldn't be telling our story. I am working on my second book of poems called Hope and All That Implies... Here is a sample poem from this book I hope to have published soon,which is about the strength and determination we all have to beat this beast and with the support of others with Epilepsy,we become stronger.

AT THE TOP

Beside the mile high mountain of the

most treacherous terrain,

Stands a team of angry and experienced

young climbers,

Confident with their grey instruments.

Clinging to each limb, and cliff like

magnets of flesh and bone,

positively charged, like spikes

dangling from a wire.

Each, another step higher,

closer to an insurmountable slice of

stone while clouds cast a shadow of

doubt on the ledge of liability.

Darkness appears as countless pairs

of ravens circle around,

flying closer and closer, daring them

to reach the top, and

pecking at them like scared children.

As the full moon rises over the top,

a blanket of stars shine their light,

leading them toward their final

destination.

The lead climber reaches the point,

looking down at his team below,

and at the bottom where instability

grows, knowing

this is where peace and tranquality

thrive, at the top.

UNIQUE, I AM

Seldom are we bound only by our

similarities,

though we ride the same bus, or eat at

the same greasy diner, or

come from the same pure matter, the

truth is we are each unique,

unique as we are different.

Distinct, but existential and free to

be who I am.

A poet, a know-it-all, or a fly on the

wall, and all I can be, but

not be distanced by society's labels

and definitions,

standard, average, as common as salt

and pepper.

What happens if you fall below that

line with one imperfection, with one

substandard, and thrust into the

boiling pot of humanity where

differences dwell,

rejecting and infecting everyone else

like molded bread?

Perfection is the deciding death of

creation, and

I, like you may be tarnished or worn,

give thanks for my individualism.

Each of us defining who we are by our

own standards, and

by the truth which sets us free for we

are the majority, unknown to Sartre,

hopeless optimists among the lonely

shephard and his sheep.