Epilepsy

I was visiting my daughter one day for lunch when out of the blue I took ill. We had been playing silly word games with her 2 children and I didn’t feel well, lost power on one side and started shaking. I thought I was having a stroke and tried to say so but could not speak, just make sounds. I heard my daughter speak to the doctor on the phone and then knew no more until I came round in a hospital bed next day. I think I was a bit confused at first as I could not work out why I was there. The consultant came round and told me I had had an epileptic fit and that the CT scan showed a right parietal infarct which they thought was “old” but could not say how old. He then said “You can’t drive, of course, and you will have to send your driving licence back to the DVLA."

This was devastating news – not the epilepsy or the stroke but losing my licence. I then found that I had to wait 1 year from the last epileptic fit to apply to have it returned.

I think I know when the stroke happened – I took a bit of a “funny turn” at home about 3 months prior to the first seizure. (I now gather that the most common cause of epileptic fits in the "elderly" is a prior stroke, although I am categorised as a "young stroke survivor".)

Yes, the FIRST seizure. I had 2 more at about 3-monthly intervals and all that concerned me was the continuing loss of my licence. After all, I was unconscious for most of the seizures and it was my poor daughter and my sister who had to find me and worry.

After the second and third seizures the doctors increased the medication* and (fingers and everything else crossed) I haven’t had one since – in over 2 and a half years,.

It would seem that I am not alone in finding the sudden loss of a driving licence devastating and perhaps medical and/or nursing personnel should be careful and sympathetic in how they break the news to patients.

* Every time I think of medication I am reminded of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest : "Medication time".