evagabourel

Epileptic Edward

Written by Eva Gabourel on March 26th 2015
On October 27th 1979, a healthy baby boy was born in Santa Elena, Cayo.
At 5 months old, he was sick and his mother took him to a local lady who she believed could cure him. In a wry twist of fate, something went wrong and the baby got sicker. At the time, he had to be rushed to the Belize City Hospital. He had a fever so hot that he had to be given an injection to his head.
Life would never be the same for baby Edward. He suffered brain damage and at 5 months old he became epileptic.
He is now 35 years old and still suffers epileptic seizures, although it does not happen daily anymore. He takes pills daily and has been doing so for as far back as I can remember. Edward is my older brother.
I remember that he was never a ‘normal’ child, in my idea of the word. He never went to school, he couldn’t speak clearly, he never seemed to mature – he always had and still has the mentality of a young child. Our mother was told that he would not live past his teenage years but he’s still here. 
He’s a beast of a boy, with an unimaginable strength. He eats a lot, hardly gets sick and has great long term memory. Even though our mom and younger sister have passed away he still asks for them often, fifteen years later.
I remember growing up that when he had an epileptic seizure, we would try to force him to the floor and hold him down. Sometimes it took a bunch of us to do it, depending on the type of “fits” he was having. Sometimes it would be very a very calm trembling-like seizure or sometimes it was the “jumping” one as we used to call it. Those were the dangerous ones. He would jump and his limbs would be moving chaotically. He often got hurt if nobody knew he was having one. Sometimes he felt some sort of sensation in his stomach right before he got it and we would tell him to lay down right away and hold him down.
It wasn’t until I was here at BNE and did the First Aid course that I learned we were not supposed to hold him down or put anything in his mouth (which we occasionally did to prevent him from biting his tongue.)
Today is Epilepsy Awareness Day and I celebrate my very special little-big brother!

Eva

Updated on October 17th 2019:

*I found out while writing Edward’s Eulogy that he got sick at just a few days old and not 5 months like I originally wrote in this article….