Dear Former Self,

You will have many bumps and obstacles as you continue through life, but just remember your resilience and determination has gotten you to where you are now are key things to getting through turmoil in the future.

You have had Epilepsy since you were 1.5 years old and instead of hiding it from others and being afraid of it, your approach was much different. You wanted to educate yourself about it, advocate for the Epilepsy community, and adapt your lifestyle due to side effects of medicine and Epilepsy. For example, through school, you created your own test and did in parts, with repeating of various parts, over multiple days. You did not let Epilepsy hold you back. You averaged a B no matter the subject, course difficulty, or what else was going on in your life.

Some things you did as a child, that some might not do if they have Epilepsy or another disability, are you at some point or another played almost every sport, you travelled on a bunch of mission trips to places like Wyoming and Honduras that were not right next door, and you did water rides and amusement rides.

Your Seizures had been dormant for almost 8 years and then re-emerged at the end of your first semester of your Senior year of College. Through your resilience and determination, you still graduated on time, kept your grades up, and you stayed an officer in 3 different clubs.

Then you decided to get brain surgery. After you had brain surgery, your neurologist told you that by looking at your brain, he was surprised that you had made it as far as you had and as successfully as you had. Your approach after brain surgery was, like the rest of your life, to not throw in the towel. You did a lot of volunteer work in your community and then went to two part-time jobs and then went to one full-time job in another state.

Things again seemed dormant. You went almost 8 years seizure free again, you lived on your own, you were driving, you were working full-time, and then things changed. You had seizures re-emerge and had some other things happen in your life. You did not give up though. You kept working full-time, volunteering for organizations at a local and national level, and figured out many methods of transportation.

You have always been determined not to let Epilepsy defeat you. Keep it up.

From,

Matthew Steele