Silent Ringing

By: Erik J. Hunker

Was there ever a time in your life when you felt like things are going too amazing; you are on a date with a beautiful girl, you have tons of friends that you are hanging out with night after night, you are blowing dirt on your dirt bike, you have finally bought yourself a new car, and it is all going so perfect that you feel it cannot be real and you just blink your eyes and you hear this quiet ringing and these slow beeps?

During the summer of 2019, I, Erik Hunker, was having an unbelievable summer. It was my last free summer of not being considered an adult and being able to be a young college student. One night in the month of June, I was walking around the house making sure all of the doors were locked; I always check the doors because no one locks the house up better than me. I then make my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I begin brushing my teeth, and before I know it I just went completely blank. I had small episodes of waking up. I woke up as I was on a gurney in the driveway, I then fell asleep. I woke up again as my brother said to me “I’m right up here”, as I was in the back of the EMT van, I assumed it was an EMT van. As time went by, I once again wake up in the emergency room with my family and doctors around me. I was still a little bit sleepy, but it was wearing off because at that time I actually stayed awake and I could tell it was a hospital, but I had no idea what actually happened. The next day it felt like nothing ever happened. My family had no idea what had happened to me, or what it even was that occurred.

Almost two months later, I actually purchased my new car and had to work that same day. My grandmother and I drove about forty-five minutes away to pick up her brand new car. She was the one I bought my new car off of; I bought her 2015 Subaru Legacy and she purchased a brand-new 2019 Subaru Legacy. The whole purchase and ride all went quick and smooth. We arrived home, we took some pictures and I was off to work. As I was driving to work, I was obeying the speed limit and driving safe, and before I knew it, I woke up hearing slow beeps and I had a bunch of wires on my chest in the emergency room. I felt very nauseous and sleepy, but all I wanted to do was to GET OUT OF THERE. According to my local police department and others that were around, I was at a stop light and I took my foot off of the brake and coasted into two other vehicles. As I was told, no one was upset or hurt. Also, the police injected me with some sort of medication because they thought I was over dosing on drugs, but of course I was not. My license was then taken away due to the accident and they told me I had to be six months seizure free until I could get my license back. 

As summer went on and into the fall, I had multiple more grand mal seizures and a lot of issues that were not full seizures just minor ones similar to a absence seizure, I would stay conscious, but I would lose my memory, hearing but hear very loud ringing in my ears, and my head would shake for around ten to fifteen seconds and it would be over, which later on caused me to go to Yale-New Haven Hospital and I was diagnosed with epilepsy. All of the full seizures I was having were grand mal seizures, they are the worst ones out the four to have. Grand mal seizures involve the loss of memory and violent muscle contractions. 

It was a hard boring summer, being a twenty one year old going into twenty-two years old having your new car sitting in the garage and not being able to go wherever whenever you want and being diagnosed with epilepsy. The good thing is that I learned a lot of activities you can do as a sick human that cannot go wherever and whenever they want. I learned many simple peaceful activities and projects other than laying around watching television and movies.

On October 15th, 2019, was my last seizure. I am beyond blessed to be seizure-free for over 2 years now. 1 in 26 people are diagnosed with epilepsy and I am not scared to say that I am one of them and I think that the other epileptic people should not be either.

I would love to give advice, support, ideas, and be someone to talk to for epileptic people. I live that life and I know what it is like. So, I can be the one to help others going through it and to help anyone be able to get through it like I did.

#EriksOfficeOfEpilepsy   #NeverGiveUp

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