Why I Don't Think Epilepsy Should be Classified as a Disease

Think for a minute about the word disease. What do you think of?

I think of viruses, and infections off the bat. A little bit more thought, and I think "Oh yeah, I have Crohn's Disease. Alzheimer's Disease isn't communicable either." The point is, most people think of disease as something you can catch, and don't always draw that conclusion. I have spent the past six years of my life saying "Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that I was born with, you can't catch it. Promise." I feel as though calling it a disease is counterproductive for many.

Language is such an interesting thing in that way, and it is something that I both despise and have a deep love for, often in the same moment. Like now, I feel like I have so many words inside me, and none of them want to string together to form the appropriate sentence. But even still- something inside of me deeply opposes this word.

 So many times people have described my seizures as a "fit", and honestly, even as an American, the word does not bother me, unless the intent is cruel or careless. To me, language is nothing without intent. But this word, "disease", is another beast. The intent is harmless. It is only a team of medical professionals innocently trying to describe something they only vaguely understand. This time though, it is the effect of language, rather than the intent, that I am most concerned about.

Here is a scenario: You are on the bus to work. You have a seizure. The medical community has classified epilepsy as a disease, and everybody on this bus knows it. Who is going to help you? People already are afraid of things they don't understand, and now it's a disease. What a daunting word. What a cursing word. You may hit your head, repeatedly. These things happen, we all know. But now, you're on a bus with 10 strangers who don't want to catch your disease. So nobody moves anything out of your way, nobody puts their jacket under your head. Nobody times your seizure or calls 911 if it's been too long. Everybody stares at you in fear. 

I do realize that this is a bit of a stretch. That enough people are educated enough to know better. But you never know. People already don't want to help. The ones who don't know better are going to be even less inclined now to help. This scares me. 

Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

I have shared half of my story with you on this blog, my experience with epilepsy. Epilepsy has greatly impacted my life, but so has Hashimoto's. Perhaps even more so than epilepsy, at times. This is a short narrative I've written to kind of give you a picture of the kinds of things I deal with on a regular basis. This was one day in particular, but most of my days go something like it. I'm sharing this with you because sometimes I feel like I have nowhere to vent, and I feel like people disregard me as lazy, or think that I make my symptoms up. Most people have no idea just how much Hashimoto's can affect a person, and it certainly imposes itself on people in VERY different ways. My mother also has it, and although she has many of the same symptoms, she seems a little worse off than me. Anyway, here it is. Thanks for reading :)

"Every morning, I wake up. I'm glad for that. I sit up in bed and, shooting pain. Both ankles. I stand. Pain in both knees. I walk to the bathroom, my hips are aching by the time I sit down on the toilet. I go make my coffee. Standing waiting for it to brew hurts the bottoms of my feet. Now that I'm thinking about it, they kind of itch. I go to my garage with my coffee and light a cigarette. I get halfway through my coffee before I remember that I've forgotten my thyroid meds. Too late now. (I have to take it on an empty stomach). I resolve to remember it an hour before lunch, which sometimes involves taking it to work with me, if I even feel well enough to go. Assuming I do, I log into the school district website and look for an assignment. I brush my hair, and notice that my eyebrows are thinning at the ends. I sigh, and pray that this doesn't happen to the hair on my head.

 I get to work, and I've forgotten my sign in number for the day. I have to open the website on my phone in front of the office staff. Embarrassing. I'm given directions to my classroom, and I sit down and read over the teacher's lesson plans for the day. I'm able to sit for about 15 minutes before the children arrive. I go through my day, rarely sitting down. Elementary schoolers don't really let you do that. I look at the lesson plan at least 50 times. I can't seem to remember a word of it. Lunch time. I forgot to take my meds. Damn. At the end of the day, I drive home. I'm so tired I forget where I'm going. I go a mile out of my way because I miss my turn on a divided highway. I get home, and all I want is to lay down. I don't. My niece is playing in the living room and runs to me as I walk through the door. I play with her for half an hour. I finally am about to go lie down, when my boyfriend gets home. He asks me if I'll do laundry today. I start the washer, and go to my bedroom. He asks how my day was. I start speaking and he interrupts me several times with questions. I start crying. I don't really know why, maybe I'm just frustrated. I realize that I'm running a fever. I take my temperature and sure enough. I complain about how I'm sick AGAIN, and everyone kind of just half listens. It seems like they've learned to just ignore me. I take the next day off to go to the doctor. I have a sinus infection, and I'm placed on another round of antibiotics. They don't work, and I'm back at the doctor two weeks later for the same thing."