Erika, 25, USA

I was on my way to my boyfriend's house to relax before an exam I had the next day. It was my 4th year in college as a Math and Mechanical Engineering student. I was still awake from pulling an all-nighter studying for this exam. I was driving and next thing you know I came to in my boyfriend's apartment complex, parked perfectly straight, in a pool of urine, and an insane headache. When I looked at my phone, there were 15 missed calls from my boyfriend spanning 15 minutes. So I was out that long and drove at least half a mile based on the last landmark I remember seeing. I'm blessed.

After the driving incident took place, I was finally diagnosed with epilepsy after being referred to a neurologist and taking the normal tests to be diagnosed. I say finally because there was a time – a year before being diagnosed – where I woke up with a slightly dislocated shoulder, which the doctor said came from sleeping incorrectly, whereas another doctor told me it was fibromyalgia. It wasn't until the driving incident that I learned that intense moments of déjà-vu I would have were simple partial seizures which soon became the sign that I'm going to have a full on seizure: either complex partial or full on grand mal. I was officially diagnosed in 2011 and it instantly changed my life: life became difficult and a huge adjustment.

At that time, I was a student majoring in Math and Mechanical Engineering. I was one semester away from getting the Math degree and another three years away from getting the ME degree. Epilepsy really took a shot at my memory so it was really difficult when first dropping from all A's to making B's and C's. It just felt hard to learn. Before, I could remember and understand anything I read. But I found myself having to read a paragraph two and three times before I remembered and interpreted what I just read. As an engineer/mathematician, that's not a good look. Essentially, I had to learn how to learn again.

I also learned that lack of sleep and stress were two of my main triggers. As a double major engineering student, sleep was a luxury. I was used to staying up late, and known for pulling all-nighters. People knew they could see me in the library when they left at midnight and still there when they returned at 7 am, in new clothes, still functional. That is for the first night. I would sometimes be up for 2-3 days at a time, with maybe a few 30 min power naps here and there. I sometimes think this attributed to my epilepsy. That along with popping caffeine pills to stay up that long. I had to learn how to be more efficient with my learning and capitalize on every opportunity to study and get ahead. I made a schedule for every single day that planned my day down to 15 minute intervals. I had to capitalize on time and plan for when to study, eat, do homework, extracurricular (if time), professor office hours (if needed). This really helped me get to bed when I was supposed to in order to get enough sleep, still having got my work done. Of course there are still times the schedule had to change, but just having that structure helped me feel in control of my life and not defined by epilepsy.

However, I will say that before that schedule in place, there was this one time during finals week... Well, my last final was coming up on Friday and it was already a class I was struggling in, so I had to be sure to beast the final. Not that I was in danger of failing, I'm just used to A's and at worst B's so I had to make sure I kept hope alive and got my good grade. Well, that led me to stay awake through all of my finals, studying in every opportunity for each class, and at the same time, studying for my 'struggle class'. So I was awake from Wednesday to Friday. Early Friday morning, around 6am, I was still in the library and decided to take a quick nap, seeing as that my final was at 8am. Of course I had come to the library prepared for my all-nighter so I had already put my pj's on; a mini-mouse onesie. So, I laid down in a booth of the library with a pillow and blanket, and right before closing my eyes, I had a déjà-vu, and said to myself, “please don't convulse”. I woke up about 7am on the floor in my onesie surrounded by paramedics with a stretcher and the janitor that found me. As I slowly came to, I realized where I was and frantically asked them what time it was. They said 7:20am. I climbed up (against their directions of course) and started picking up all my scattered flash cards and notebooks and threw them in my book bag. They were still trying to get me to stop and get on the stretcher but I told them to come back around 10 after my final... And I went and took the final. Had more seizures after it was over and ended up in the hospital anyway... But I didn't have to come back on Saturday and take a final. Yes, it was dumb.

I look back now and can only laugh though.

- April 27th, 2015 Contact info: Email: erika.dommond@gmail.com