Before I go on to tell you my story, let me first thank the people of the Epilepsy Foundation of Georgia for giving me a new lease on life by making me realize that living with epilepsy is more of a challenge than it is a barrier to seeking and achieving the wonderful things that life can offer. It is a great honor for me to be present here today during this awards ceremony especially as one of the awardees. Epilepsy, unlike many other crippling diseases, can be very difficult to deal with.
I was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 15 and upon diagnosis the whole world began to fall apart. For my parents, it was like a curse because all they wanted was a normal, healthy child, and instead they have someone with a rare and potentially disabling disease. I felt that I was cut off from the rest of the world. I could not go out and play like normal kids because I had to be aware of my sudden attacks which could be very dangerous especially when I was in a situation where I was at a risk of hitting my head or any other body part on hard surfaces during my attacks.
The normal life began to slowly disintegrate and everywhere I went I had to take necessary precautions to make sure that I was not in any kind of secondary danger because of my disease. I had few friends, and I barely went on trips where I was to be on my own. I could not go to summer camps like other kids or sleepovers because my parents would not allow me to, on the premise that I might have one of my epileptic attacks. Later, I was not able to drive and I even had to miss school because of the underlying and potential effects of the disease.
I was, most importantly, unable to do the one thing that I loved so much, which was play football. Imagine a young boy having to sit it out while his friends played football in the fields, simply because I had to consider the risks of strenuous activity when playing football. However, in my deepest and darkest moments, I decided to take hold of my life and go beyond the disease. God was kind to me and because of Divine Grace, the help of the people I love as well as the people who were genuinely concerned of my future, I was able to metamorphose into someone most would barely expect me to be.
My stunted love for football, stunted by the limitations of epilepsy, turned out to be my greatest challenge. Now, mostly because of that challenge, I have grown to become someone who no only plays football, but someone who plays football for a very prestigious organization, the National Football League; now, would expect an epileptic’s name to be side by side with the names of other football greats in the league? With God, anything is possible. At some point in my struggles with epilepsy I began to realize that it was pointless being limited by a disease that was not part of my existence to begin with.
With the help of my doctors who helped me through the physical and physiological aspect of the disease and who were patient enough to allow me to become an individual who was not bounded by the physical and health consequences of the disease, I was able to emerge as an individual who had a deeper comprehension of what epilepsy really was. My doctors empowered me as an individual and helped me conquer the barriers that epilepsy initially presented. They gave me the scientific and biological understanding of the disease and armed me with enough knowledge to conquer the disease altogether.
I wanted to prove to myself that even with epilepsy, I could be as normal as anyone could be. From then on, I began to consider my disease as a challenge and I began to try to live with it but achieve more in the process; because of the risks that epilepsy presented in my daily life, I started to compensate for certain things, like if I was not able to expose myself to strenuous activity because of the risk of an attack, I would seek other, more productive means of spending my time so that I would be entertained and achieve something in the process.
I began to learn to live with the disease and use it as a reason for me to work harder and to seek more avenues of success. I began to think beyond my disability and found myself beginning to think beyond the normal person in the process. This mind set of mine allowed me to reach heights that even a normal, epilepsy-free person could only dream of. I went on to achieve great things and enjoy more opportunities; my parents have become proud of me, not because of what I achieved, but mostly because of my drive to move on and forget about epilepsy as a barrier to normal life.
When I began to consider epilepsy as a challenge, more opportunities opened up for me, and I was at the helm of my ship. I was in total control of my life and from then on, I began to meet new friends, new acquaintances, who themselves, were grappling with epilepsy the way I was grappling with it years ago. These people would usually ask me how I had moved on to achieve so much in life despite my disease – for all of them, I have a very simple answer – epilepsy is not an important part of your life, it is simply there to sway you from the real objective of life which would be to make something out of it.
The challenge in living with epilepsy is not so much with having to deal with the symptoms or being concerned with the attacks; the challenge simply is having to co-exist with it – when you know you have epilepsy, it should not be a reason for you to just let go and feel that there is no longer any direction for you; epilepsy should all the more be a cause for each of us to seek a greater purpose and set our sights on that purpose.
Sure, achieving that goal may be more difficult for us because of our crippling disease, but when we reach our goal, success is also sweetest, because unlike other people who have every opportunity for their easy taking, we really have to work hard to achieve and to acquire what we have set our sights on. Epilepsy, or any crippling disorder, for that matter should never be viewed as a disability to be able to get the most out of life – rather, it should be a challenge for all of us to live beyond the boundaries and limitations of life!