About Me

My name is Lauren, and I have been struggling with epilepsy for twelve years now.

I first started having seizures in the summer of 1997, but I didn't know it. At the time, I had no idea what epilepsy was so I dismissed what I would learn were seizures as daydreaming and paid no attention to the fact that I lost awareness and memory for minutes at a time.

That August brought my first day in ninth grade. I was waiting for the school bus, alone and flute in hand, when I had my first known grand mal seizure. I remember wondering what happened as I dusted the dirt off my knees as my school books and flute lay scattered on the ground. My mother took me to the hospital and I was diagnosed with epilepsy. Finally, everything made sense. The unexplained bumps and bruises, my bitten tongue, and the weird feelings I had been experiencing several months prior. As long as I take my six pills each morning and evening, I do not have to worry about having another grand mal seizure.

Unfortunately, the complex partial seizures I experience up to eight times a week have yet to cease. After seven years of living with uncontrolled seizures, seven years of medical appointments, neurological testing and countless medication changes, I was referred to the Minnesota Epilepsy Group. I had a right temporal lobectomy in August of 2004 and for seven months I lived a normal life. I was even able to enroll in driver's education for the first time, and almost acquired my learner's permit. In March of 2005 I noticed that I was daydreaming as I had in 1997 and the years afterward. I called them episodes and began recording when they occurred. After several weeks had passed I knew I was not just daydreaming, my seizures had returned.

That is where I am now. More testing, more medication, more frustration. When I wake up in the morning I find myself wondering how many seizures I will have before the sun goes down. Will I be able to do this, will it be safe to do that, and how will epilepsy affect me today? I dream that someday I will have the same freedom that millions of other people have and not have to worry about seizures interrupting where I live, what I do, where I work. I pray that someday my dreams will come true.