After that the seizures came in waves. Each began as a small neural misfire: a red light that would burst into the upper-right-hand corner of my vision. Most times the light would fade. Other times it spread, as if my field of vision had caught on fire. When the light lasted, disorientation would follow. Then my right eye would black out before I'd lose consciousness altogether. For the next nine years these lights came and went, sometimes as many as five a day, other times as little as one or two. There were good days and bad days. Mostly there were bad days.

Though it's been 11 years since my first seizure, five years since I last saw the inside of an ambulance, I still feel my stomach constrict when the topic comes up. There are reasons, I suppose. In a sheltered life lived in the suburbs, epilepsy was the only thing to make me deeply afraid. I felt like a captive in my own skin, prisoner to neurons that could fire without warning. My sophomore year of high school I wound up on the floor of my biology class, unconscious and shaking, my eyes rolled to the back of my head. I was rushed to the hospital, then released days later.