Late yesterday afternoon I went to a Walmart hair salon to have my hair trimmed. A girl about 25 (anyone under 30 is a girl to me) was working alone and about to close up, but she took me in.

This girl I'll call Nina, had eyes like Dina Merill and nice teeth. She looked so exhausted I asked if she was okay. She said her epilepsy medication made her feel tired all the time. I was taken aback. People with epilepsy don't talk about it. There's a big stigma associated with epilepsy. Ancient people thought epileptics were either touched by the divine or the devil, and here in 2009 things haven't changed much. Seeing someone having a grand mal seizure is frightening.

So I was telling Nina that as an RN, I had to do intake assessments on new patients at the hospital, and was surprised by how many people who have seizure disorders. She is not alone, it is not uncommon. It is not an illness or disease, it's a disorder of the firing of the electrical impulses in the brain. Nina told me about her medications and she has a pacemaker implanted in her chest that tries to stop the seizures with an implant in her head. She has a dog who can tell when a seizure is about to happen.

I told Nina Julius Caesar had epilepsy. She said Who? I hugged her when I left. She was so thin her elbows stuck out like sticks and her spine so prominent you could feel it poking against her skin. Those Dina Merill eyes had a tortured look. This girl has had a rough life. If only. If only. If only some healer could place their hands on her head and tell it Peace, be still.

I looked on Wikipedia this am to see who besides Caesar had epilepsy. Supposedly Hercules, Plato, Socrates, Caligula and Muhammed was afflicted.
Also, Lenin, Margaux Hemingway and Philip K. Dick (A favorite sc-fi writer) had it too. There were lots of names.
But you rarely ever hear anyone talk about it.

susil