Epilepsy is a pain in the rear

For something that has its true effect in the brain epilepsy really is a pain in the butt.
Without medication I used to feel a bit tired and more stroppy than normal for a day or so, then have a short seizure, few minutes or even seconds, feel the same for a few more days and then recover. That was when I didn't realise that brain damage I had received from some moron driving on the mobile phone had given me epilepsy.
Now I have the daily impact of medication making me tired and occasionally uncoordinated, and I really hate that. In exchange when I would normally have had a very minor seizure seconds, I feel tired for about a week, and know that this is why. One that would have been a few minutes suddenly becomes a week or so of tired fatigue and sometimes a seizure, other times gradual relief.
As someone who is very active this is a real issue. This time I have lost most of a week’s training and been too uncoordinated to risk cycling to work.
I am hoping to be back to normalish by tonight when I ride home, and definitely by tomorrow when I want to do deadlifts again, a session I had to cut short last week.
The choice I have been faced with and taken here has been decided by having family I love. The medication affects me every day of my life and I hate it, the seizures are infrequent and with one exception haven't been life threatening. So if I didn't have family there as a reason to stay alive I wouldn't take the rubbish I have been prescribed choosing to take my chances with seizures instead. However I have people relying on me and want to see my son grow up, so there is no real choice, I take the meds to avoid the potential of another that could kill me.
Symptomatic epilepsy is unpredictable and I have only had seizures at night, meaning I sleep through most of them. This also means the seizure which started investigations would have killed me as many night-time seizures do, I would have choked on my pillow. Not going to happen now have special pillow which allows me to breath face down, and is as comfortable as a foam brick, I’ve gotten used to it.
There are many things to hate about being epileptic, medication is at the top of my list, anticipation is next. I have to live thinking in terms of what would happen if I had a fit or seizure, this means I will never ride a motorbike again, I have changed the type of cycle I ride, my training is more tame and I generally take less chances, just in case. I am more fortunate than some because I have always felt signs in the build-up, but I cannot absolutely guarantee this warning so live as if there will be none.
I have also made changes to my life to compensate for the problem and the side effects of my medication. These have included trying to keep calm when tired, and dulled by neuro-inhibitors which make you feel less patient, training to be more stable and coordinated to counter the short times when the medication makes my surrounding feel less solid than they are, or literally absent and many others.
Those who give up because of epilepsy get some of my understanding but no sympathy, it is something you can fight back against most of the time, and it is rarely the most serious cases who give up. I have known a few who moan about how horrible it is and that they get seizures every time they forget their meds, sorry if you forget your meds, you are an idiot, my phone is a museum piece but it has alarm functions and these remind me to take them, not difficult in a world were so many of us have phones with us 24/7. Others who drink knowing this makes the medication useless, or who think a minute long seizure is incredibly major. Yes seizures are horrible and to some extent scary, but when it’s over get on with life as much as you can. Life is what you make it and none of us can afford to let one thing destroy it for us, the few I have met with really serious and frequent epilepsy have lived all the more knowing how short theirs could be.
This area will be a rant zone of things I wish wouldn’t happen. There are worse out there, so it’s not woe is me, just my own reflections.