Six years, I slept with my mom. For six years, I got called a baby. For six years, they didn't know the real reason why.
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Shaking. Lots of shaking. I open my eyes, sitting up quickly. One word flashes through my head. Mom. I turn around in the bed to check on her. She's shaking, flopping around. Her body is uncontrollable, almost seeming to appear possessed. Her mouth is foaming, a white, bubbly saliva mixed with blood. Her eyes are back, showing the creamy whites of her eyes scattered with blood veins, strained and ready to pop.
My heart is pounding as I grab the tan colored phone off it's dock, dialing Dad's number into the green lit up keypad. 515-988... My breathing is fast and heavy as I wait to hear his voice on the other line. When I hear the background noise come through the speaker, I blurt, "Dad, it's happening again..."
After we hang up, I yell to my sisters, glancing back at Mom for a second, but stop myself. I hate seeing her like this. What's it like to see someone so close to you become suddenly consumed by themselves? Their body being completely taken over, and they aren't even aware of it. Their brain suddenly takes control of them and all you can do is watch. You feel so helpless, and it's just another night. Something is really wrong and you feel the compulsion to help. There has to be SOMETHING I can do, you envisage. But, there is nothing. There is no pain greater than to be helpless when a loved one is suffering.
Not long after, I hear the faint, slow sound of footsteps, creating an eerie creak in the floorboards. Zombie-walking into the bedroom, my two sisters peek around the corner. "What's wrong?" one stammers. They quickly pick up on it and scramble to get a glass of water and her pills from the kitchen, heedful not to drop or spill them on the way.
After a couple of minutes, my Mom's body slowly becomes still and her eyes come back to their normal open position. She looks at us, confused, as we apprise to her that she had just had another seizure. I could see the disappointment swelling up in her eyes, for this meant the new meds she had received from her doctor have, once again, failed. I know she's embarrassed that we have to see her like this, but by now we are used to it.
After taking big gulps of the water, we patiently begin to lead her to the bathroom, just as we hear the sirens wailing, growing louder the closer they come. Lights pierce colors of red and blue through the curtains. Men in navy blue scrub-like uniforms pile into our living room, 2 hauling a stretcher up our thick stairs and through our narrow doorway.
They examine Mom, shining a small pocket light back and forth into her eyes and nose. When they get to her mouth, she sticks out her tongue, revealing what appears to me as bloody bite marks from where her sharp teeth ripped into it. I cringed at the sight. Seeing it sent chills down my spine as they strapped her onto the surface of the stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance.
I watch out our big picture window as they speed off into the darkness beyond the brightness of the street light, seeing the neighbor's blinds begin to spread out over their windows from watching the light show that just occurred. I listened to the sirens, growing quieter and quieter as the ambulance got farther away before closing ours as well.
Once they were out of sight, I tiredly drag myself over to where my sisters are gathered together on the couch and join them. We all sit there, cuddled up together. Our once rushed, noisey house now lays silent. All we hear is the sounds of the wall clock ticking and our paced breathing.
Eventually, we become startled by the sudden sound of our front door being pushed open. Walking in cautiously, my grandparents step in, the smell of freshly made doughnuts trailing behind them. Silently, we sit on the couch, all eating the much needed treat until we are all able to fall soundly asleep.
For six years, I was woken up to these scary situations. With my Dad working almost 24/7, I had adjusted to taking care of her with only the help of my sisters. The scariest part is that you can't do anything to help but lay them on their side, so if they throw up they don't choke on it, and wait for them to come back to you. There is no cure for epilepsy either, so you have no idea how long you will have to deal with it. It could stick with you for many years, or for your entire life. 200,000 to 3 million cases of epilepsy come up per year. Even when the most experienced doctors would freeze up at the sight of someone having a seizure, I have become accustomed to it. I've experienced putting the car in neutral and agonizing the amount of time it takes for the car to come to a complete stop, and even having to pull her out of the bathtub water to keep her from unintentionally consuming water and drowning. Despite having to see my mom go through such trauma, it helped me grow up, step into the role of the care-taker, and become more aware of the importance of life.
