Thank you 🙂 🙂 🙂

Good luck, Amy!

Thank you so much. Your story is so inspiring and gives me hope and I will print out your comment so I can take it to my doctor. Thank you!

I have epilepsy, but it had been controlled fine for 15 years. In 2001, when I was in graduate school, I was hospitalized with a perforated appendix, and something happened to my brain, but I don’t know what. I got out of the hospital and I had huge problems with memory. I couldn’t remember words like “home,” so I’d have to say “the place where I live.” I forgot facts. I forgot my address. I forgot how to use the phone.

Most of the basics came back slowly, but I had finished all the classes for my PhD and while I was recovering I forgot everything I’d read and much of what I’d written. I forgot all the French and Latin I’d learned so carefully to get my degree.

Still, I managed. I got by. I dropped out of grad school. I moved across country because I didn’t have a reason to be where I was if I wasn’t in school.

But the aphasia made me feel like a failure. Like you, I’d been smart, creative, a writer since an early age. So I called a friend and asked if there were any doctors who specialized in that. She told me to go to a neuropsychologist.

I made the appointment, but the neuropsychologist told me she wanted me to have a long-term EEG before she saw me (five nights in an epilepsy monitoring unit).

I did that, and on the very first night they discovered that something had happened when I had my infection…for some reason, although you couldn’t SEE my seizures, I was still having them.

Anyway, I’ve had ups and downs, betters and worses, been on a wide variety of meds, but if you haven’t seen a neuropsychologist or epileptologist, I recommend it. I got answers in 2005 (yes, it took me almost four years to get over my embarrassment). By the end of 2007, I’d written a novel. And just last week, I got published.

You can do it. Don’t give up. You’re not alone.

Thank you so much. 🙂 I sincerely hope that it is only tiredness you’re experiencing, and not something more serious. And I will keep writing if you will! Wait, who are we kidding? It’s not like we could ever stop! 🙂

You worked so hard to try and regain your confidence and bilingual abilities. That is inspiring! I hope you keep writing and speaking with confidence.