One word I have come to despise since I was diagnosed with epilepsy is the word “disabled.” Seriously…who the fuck thought up this word? Let’s just break down this word in its simplest of meanings…not abled. And now let’s attach that term to anyone with a medical condition or disease. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? Like many “abled” and “normal” people, I have certain restrictions that I need to live by; for example, people who have high blood pressure often need to monitor their activity, and even individuals that are on a diet find themselves unable to eat what they want. Okay, so maybe I’m over-reaching with the comparison of an epileptic and an overweight person, but I do have a point. Calling an overweight person fat isn’t nice so why do we still use the term “disabled?” And don’t tell me it’s a legal term, because that’s bull shit! Anyways, I’m getting off on a tangent. Let’s start from the beginning shall we…when my life completely changed.
My freshman year in high school was actually pretty awesome (minus the whole “hey now you’re an epileptic” thing that happened). My mom and dad finally let me wear contacts, so I no longer felt like little miss four eyes (and before you ask, yes, I had been called that many a times by mean little elementary boys who don’t deserve even a sentence in this book and blog). Boys were really starting to notice me, and I LOVED it! My dad on the other hand hated it. I didn’t care though. It just felt so good to finally be thought of as one of the pretty girls, rather than “a friend.” And despite the fact that I was a band geek who played the flute (and no there was no band camp for me), I was invited to a senior party and both the junior and senior proms! I just couldn’t believe it! I wasn’t really popular or anything, and it wasn’t like I was putting out, so it was kind of cool to feel a little special. And even better, I had the best group of friends! They were all a little geeky and eccentric like me so we all got along great! And I must’ve belonged to every club you could possibly imagine during my freshman year.
Things changed though the end of my freshman year…the spring of 1992. One random night, I went to bed “normal” and woke up “different.” It would take about a week before I knew exactly how “different” I had become. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Afterwards, I was thirsty, and all I wanted was a glass of soda. Weird, I know. When I went to the fridge, there was this humungous bottle of ginger ale that my dad bought but it hadn’t been opened yet. I walked across the kitchen to get a glass and to open the bottle. As I tried to open the bottle, I pulled it close to my chest but when I went to twist the cap off, my hand jerked uncontrollably, and before I knew it, the soda bottle was on the floor exploding everywhere! The last thought I remember thinking to myself as I bent over was: “Geez! What the fuck!” But then everything went black. I woke up hours later in Brockton Hospital with tubes up my nose and one hell of a migraine. My mom was sitting next to me, while my dad had to go to work. I was so groggy and felt like someone had drugged the hell out of me, only after banging my head against the wall a few hundred times. As I started to come to, I could feel the burning of the oxygen as it ran through the tubes and into my nose. I kept ripping the tubes out, and I don’t know if it was my mom or the nurse, but they kept trying to put the tubes back up my nose. I wound up going home later on that day. My parents started talking to me about what happened and what the doctors said at the hospital, and all I heard in my head was Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice….waaawaawaa. Was this really happening to me?
Four Little Pills 
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