My 19th birthday present

 The year I turned 19 was an interesting year.  I had just finished my freshmen year at Assumption and would be starting at Framingham in the fall.   I had had a rough start to freshmen year but it ended pretty well.  During the year I had had some minor health issues which all of the nurse practitioners and doctors I had seen said it was from being exhausted. (this was the explanation given when I apparently "shook myself" out of my bed in my dorm room at school)  I had just gotten a nannying job for my pediatricians kids. I was ready for it to be a great summer. My body had other plans apparently. While babysitting I got the ringing in my ears that had become too familiar as it had been going on since Senior year of high school. The difference this time was it was accompanied by my left foot going numb as well. When the kids father got home I left  and drove myself straight to the doctors office which was also where my mom worked. The ringing in my ears and my foot going numb happened another time but this time it was while I was driving.  I called my mom to let her know I was coming and to have her fit me in. That day began the longest week of my life. Getting blood work done, getting EEG's done, and getting an MRI done.  Then the week of my 19th birthday I cant remember if it was the day before or the day after I got the phone call from my pediatrician, letting me know that I had seizures. I was in complete shock and had no clue what this meant for me.  I was immediately put on meds to control my seizures. The only good news I received was that I didn't have a brain tumor. I then went and met with my new neurologist.  The first appointment was very overwhelming, everything was about to change. We spent most of the appointment trying to find out what caused me to have seizures only to find out that I will probably never know what caused my seizures. That is one of the worst parts of it because I am the type of person who wants answers. The one thing that we did figure out was I had probably been having  seizures since at least 8th grade if not earlier. The reason we are pretty sure about 8th grade is because I passed out the day of the DVC meet but right before I passed out I lost my vision for a couple minutes as I walked up the stairs. And since my current seizures have to do with my senses (hearing specifically) my neurologist says it wasn't a far leap to assuming that I passed out because of a seizure. This started a very emotional couple of weeks for me.  I was still upset about the seizures but didn't know how to deal with it. While I didn't know how to deal with it, I of course kept my emotions to my self for the most part(one or two tearful phone calls were made to close friends).  I don't like to be a burden to my friends or my family. Because of this fear of being a burden I find I hide a lot and just try to put on the smile that everyone expects of me. Now I don't know why but I believe my diagnosis of seizure disorder and then subsequently having 2 Grand Mal seizures which ended in an ER visit, has made me almost afraid of life. Working to not be afraid of life is going to be one of my biggest challenges. Thank you for reading this, I am sorry about the length. It was just so much to explain and I know many of my friends don't know all of the details so if I was going to talk about this in the future everyone would need to have this background knowledge.