Rosie - Interview 25
Rosie's temporal lobe epilepsy was caused by a brain hemorrhage she had as a premature baby. This also caused her to have mild cerebral palsy. She has been seizure-free for 10 months.
Rosie is 22 and part-time clerical officer. She is single. Ethnic background / nationality' White British.
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Rosie is 22 and works as a part-time clerical officer. Rosie was a very premature baby, born at 24-weeks of gestation. She suffered a brain haemorrhage and was given a very poor prognosis, she was not expected to survive or might never be able to learn to walk or talk. Rosie got out of the hospital in 5 months but was left with mild Cerebral Palsy and epilepsy.
She was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy when she was 10. She was put on Tegretol and was seizure-free for three years. When trying to wean her off medication, the seizures came back. Rosie says this was a difficult period and that she was "in denial". She felt angry because she had hoped that she'd grown out of epilepsy. She said she felt sorry for herself for years and felt like the only person in the world with epilepsy.
Everything changed when her mum saw an ad for a local support group. Rosie went along and "hasn't looked back". She said it was a "relief" to meet other young people with epilepsy and she has made a lot of friends there. The support group helped her be happier and see her epilepsy in a very different light - she no longer sees it as a hindrance to achieving her goals life.
She has had complex partial, simple partial and absence seizures. Her main triggers are stress and lack of sleep. She also can't do sport in cold temperatures because it always gives her a seizure. Rosie's seizures are well controlled now, after a medication change and she hasn't had a seizure for 10 months.
Rosie says it takes a while to accept epilepsy diagnosis and that you can never get used to having seizures. But, in time, she has realised that, “it doesn't stop you from doing everything you did before the diagnosis”. She's planning to move away from home and buy her own flat.