On a warm spring night in 2015, an audience in a Minneapolis school auditorium waited excitedly for the curtain to rise on opening night for my middle school's annual spring play. There was a delay, though, and then a last-minute casting change. One of the show's leads would not be performing that night. Instead, a brave cast member would step up and fill the role by reading lines directly from the script.
What the audience had not realized was that as they waited for the lights to dim and the music to rise, a student in the cast experienced a seizure and was unable to go on stage. Later that same night, a second student would have a seizure. That student was me.
At the time, I was a 7th grader, already familiar with seizures. I was diagnosed with epilepsy at age two. I remember coming out of my seizure to a chaotic scene, with my friends and classmates helping, doing exactly what I had proactively taught them.
I was later told that when my seizure set in, the students nearby all reacted appropriately, while rattled adults watched, not sure what to do.
My parents, who had been waiting to meet me, came into the dressing room and found me in the middle of a seizure, with some friends counting the seconds aloud to time its duration, while other friends shielded me from the fluorescent lighting and kept the area clear. It was a traumatic night for many people involved, and the way the adults in the room had been unprepared did not feel right to me.
Epilepsy is a neurological condition of the brain characterized by someone having two or more unprovoked seizures. A seizure is a brief electrical surge in the brain which can cause convulsions, changes in an individual's behavior and/or unconsciousness.
About 3.4 million Americans live with epilepsy. In Minnesota, approximately 7,400 children live with epilepsy and attend one of the state's more than 3,000 public, private or charter schools. Despite the large number of students who have this neurological condition, too many teachers and staff lack the tools and knowledge to appropriately respond to seizures.
This is disheartening. I have always needed to independently build a network of people to help in case I have a seizure at school. It has also been difficult for my parents. They have had to pay special visits to each of my teachers every new school year to educate them on how to handle my seizures and medications — in addition to all the other natural parental worries.
