I had no clue I was told that I have Epilepsy
A 17 year old trying to make plans for her future can be a little trickier than you think. Do you want to go to college, and if you do how will you pay for it? When you live a middle class life your parents won't be able to help. Loans loans loans... You know it's gonna be ramen noodles everyday because you're working just to pay for school alone. I also want to travel and I know I won't be able to do that until I get out of school and have a good job. What about serving my country? There has been no influence in my life about joining the military, I asked around and heard about it through friends and recruiters. Well a junior in high school and this is what I decided to do, I enlisted in the military at seventeen! Before I knew it Graduation came and the nerves started to hit me. My friends were excited for college and I was leaving everyone, my supportive family, friends and the first guy I said I love you to. They were all happy for me and behind my decision one hundred percent. I cut a foot off of my hair and enjoyed the last few weeks I had at home as a civilian! A fun girly girl getting ready to be a sailor.
So many emotions had passed through my mind and I was learning a whole new way of life. Meeting and having to team up with people I barely knew. But before I knew it I was graduating Boot Camp and heading to school in Florida where I would see the ocean for the first time! Already checking things off my life long bucket list at just eighteen. I was lucky!
One day sitting in class they called my name "Hallman, Where do you wanna go?" and in front of me read; Washington, Virgina, San Diego and Japan. I never wanted to be stationed out of the country, I thought that it's just too far from my family! Then, "Japan!" I said.
Oh. my. gosh. Did I just pick to live overseas and serve my country from another one? You betcha I did! Boy did it bring me to some wonderful people and a beautiful place I never thought of visiting or even living in! I had been here for about four months and we were talking about our first deployment and how we'd be hitting Australia and San Diego for a ship swap! So we wanted to have fun and enjoy our time before our first journey out to sea. What a crazy thought right, To be on a ship full of people traveling through the pacific ocean for months at a time! Well until then it was Friday nights in heels and Saturday mornings with coffee and Cinnabon. But one morning I didn't make it to the coffee, I barely made it out of the shower. Waking up disoriented and being asked questions that I had no idea of was the most "blonde" moment I've ever had in my life. Last thing I remember was getting out of the shower, Luckily my friend just showered before me and was there to witness my first seizure. A SEIZURE?! Those things that happen when you foam at the mouth and have probably had some type of brain injury?! I couldn't believe what I heard. My friend told me the whole story, everything I did, the way I acted, like a zombie the foaming at the mouth and even snoring. I blacked out for at least a half hour. To whom I thought were the smart Navy corpsman, told me I was dehydrated and I believed it considering I drink water like I'm always dehydrated and haven't had any in the last 12 hours. But sure enough 9 days later I woke up in the hospital.
I definitely missed all the time I spent in the hospital, I slept on and off for about 24 hours. Considering I was blacked out, I only remember a few things happening until I had left the hospital. I remember laying in the ambulance, I remember my friend holding my hand and tears running down the side of my face as I got a CT scan. I did wake up for some lunch while my friends went to back to work. They did a fancy EEG scan of my brain that tests to see if I have normal brainwave activity and it was clear that I don't. I had two grand-mal seizures, the one that brought me to the hospital and one in the ER. I'm 19 years old and am still trying to process how this happened. I have the healthiest history ever and I'm good at taking care of myself so I was blown away as to where this came from. My MRI showed no tumors and they can't detect where in my brain the seizures are coming from.
Being overseas away from my family through this has got to be the biggest challenge I've faced in my nineteen years of life. I'm doing it though! Getting stronger every day. Waiting to be sent back to the states and get more tests done and then finally separated from the Navy. There is so much to take in. With-in 9 days my life did a complete 360. First of all I don't get to go on deployment ever in my life, I never get to experience what I signed up for. Even though it's not an easy job to be gone for nine months at a time, I knew I would be doing something good for my country and now I can't, ever.
The more time that passes I really start to believe that this was not meant to be. Even though I had done a great thing to volunteer myself to serve my country, it wasn't the right path I was supposed to be on. Everything happens for a reason, and for some reason I was on the wrong road in life and this is what happened to change that. I'm not very religious person so I don't know what to say about god in this situation, but I know he's there somewhere watching over my health, And now it's time to make new plans for my future! I so badly want to go to school still and now I have all these options. I don't know if I want to study PR or go out on a limb and be the weather woman! Haha I mean there's so much out there I'd love to do but now I have to do it with epilepsy. There's another obstacle added to my life.
Now I have to be on medication for the rest of my life? Please no. Maybe I can become seizure free, I really don't believe in taking man made medication unless it's for something serious which in this case it is. They can cause liver failure, weight gain, memory loss, I mean the list goes on. Having to live with just that thought blows my mind. And I've come around to understand that I need something to stop these seizures, but the last thing I want to do is have to depend on medication. At first I was diagnosed with epilepsy but if I stay on all these meds, I will end up with more problems then I started with. I want to be as healthy as possible just like anyone else wants to be because when the doctor tells me I can still live a normal life, I really am not no matter how hard I hide it, it's always there. A hidden disease that I can't control, But I am going to do whatever I can to live a life full of happiness. I have great Ideas for my future and I am going to accomplish my bucket list no matter the situation. I couldn't be more thankful to have what I do and the loved ones that I do. Epilepsy will not stop me.
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