Personal Narrative: My Sophomore Year In High School

A time I faced my biggest challenge was halfway into my sophomore year in high school. Up until then I was pretty healthy, but not obsessed with being overly healthy. I did everything any typical high schooler did. I stayed up late, got up early, went out on the weekends, but never to big parties. I never did anything that I knew would harm my health, so I wasn’t exactly like most high schoolers. About twice a year my youth group did a lock-in, which is basically a bunch of high schoolers pulling an all nighter together. It was always on a Friday night, so of course, I went to school the day of the lock-in. We played games, had food, and watched a movie. I’m usually not one to play sports, but hockey was my favorite game so I played hard with

Everything was normal until we were on the way home. I fell asleep in the car because I was absolutely exhausted. Since I was asleep, the next few hours to come I still cannot remember. The next thing I do remember was waking up to my family surrounding me at the hospital. Apparently, I had experienced two episodes of a seizure: one in the car, the other in the hospital. At Culpeper hospital, they performed a cat scan and x-ray to make sure I had sustained no injuries. I was eventually transported to UVA hospital at around 9:30. The halls of the ER are filled with patients on stretchers with their loved ones hoping for treatment soon. I am finally moved to a room in the ER, but with a curtain separating the room from me and another patient. I overhear the people on the other side of the curtain. “What happened to him?” the nurse asked the mother. “He got shot by a BB gun,” the mother responded. Then the next thing I hear is this little boy puking his guts out. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t trying to eat considering it had been over 12 hours since I had eaten. My aunt brought me a plain sandwich from Chick-fil-a and fries, which I usually would not get but I really didn’t care as I was starving. As I was eating my food, the boy continued to vomit and then the smell ventured over to my side of the room ruining my appetite. Despite the volume of everyone in the emergency room, I went to sleep because I was surely drained. The next day they gave me an EEG. Later that day, with many visitors filing in and out of my room, my diagnosis finally came. I had epilepsy. Something I had never heard of that apparently I had but not sleeping for 28 hours