An entry to the 2025 Irish Epilepsy League writing competition was from medical student Dave Lee.
Speaking on his entry, Dave said:
This is a fictional narrative inspired by clinical observations and patient experiences in epilepsy care
You can read Dave's entry in full below...
Between the Seizures
Letter 1
(Age 12)
Dear Me (Age 20),
Today I came home from the hospital with a word I don’t know how to hold: epilepsy.
Mam says it will be grand. The doctor smiled too much. Dad squeezed my hand harder than usual. But no one could tell me why my body stopped listening.
At school, it was like falling through the floor of my mind. A flicker, a flash, and then nothing. When I woke up, the nurse had tears in her eyes.
I could smell Dettol and the plastic of the oxygen mask, even though I didn’t remember using it.
Everyone kept saying it wasn’t my fault, but they looked at me like I was broken.
I don’t want to be broken. I don’t want to be special. I want to be the girl who runs fast, who laughs loud, who doesn’t feel her heart race every time the lights flicker or the world tilts.
I want to take the 16A with my friends and not have Mam texting every five minutes.
Maybe by now, you’ve found the words to fit around this one. I hope so. I hope you’re free.
Letter 2
(Age 15–16)
Dear Me (Age 20),
They say “it gets better.”
But at school, it just gets lonelier.
I’m the girl who sits out in P.E. now. The one with the watchful eyes on her, just in case. The girl who can’t swim alone, can’t camp with friends, can’t go to discos, can’t take the bus into town without someone knowing where she is every minute.
I’m tired of the careful voices. The way teachers say “we’ll make an exception” with pity. The way friends hesitate to invite me places where they don’t know what to do if I fall.
Last week they were playing rounders in P.E. — the one game I used to love. Running, hitting, shouting across the pitch. I watched from the bench, pretending not to care. But it was the first time I felt the tears catch behind my eyes since this all started.
Later, Caoimhe texted me: “Sorry you had to sit out.” I didn’t know how to reply.
Sometimes I think it’s easier when they don’t text at all.
No one talks about the space between seizures — the waiting. The endless waiting for something you can’t see but can’t stop fearing.
Last night, I had another seizure alone. I didn’t tell Mam. I hate the way her face folds with worry. But tonight, I wrote it here, so I remember:
I am still here. I am still more than this.
I hope by now you are too.
Letter 3
(Age 18–19)
Dear Me (Age 20),
Tomorrow they will place a machine inside me. I wonder if you remember what that felt like — the night before.
It’s called VNS. A small device under the skin, sending pulses to teach my brain a new song. I wanted to believe the meds would be enough. I wanted to believe I could will this away. But the seizures came back. Harder. Meaner.
The choice was mine. No one pushed me. But I’m tired of shrinking my life to fit around the seizures. I’m tired of avoiding joy because it might invite danger.
Dr O’Sullivan says St James’s has had good results with it. I looked up the stories online, trying to believe in them. A girl from Galway said it gave her her life back. I wonder if it will do the same for me.
Mam packed my overnight bag this evening. A new pair of pyjamas, just in case. She folded them three times before zipping it shut.
So tomorrow, I choose hope. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won’t. But I need to believe there is more life waiting on the other side of fear.
If you’re reading this now, I hope you are living it.
Letter 4
(Age 23–24)
Dear Me (Age 12),
You were right to be afraid. You were also right to hope.
The seizures haven’t disappeared — but they no longer own me. The VNS pulses like a quiet promise beneath my skin. I know it’s there. I know it helps.
Some days, the fear still stirs. Crowded Luas. Flashing lights on Grafton Street. A skipped lunch. These are still risks. But they are not my cage anymore.
The first time I walked down Grafton Street after the surgery, the Christmas lights were up. I cried, but no one noticed.
Some scars don’t show — but they still rise to the surface sometimes.
I swim again. I take the train to Galway. I laugh at parties without checking the exits first. Not because I’m cured, but because I’ve learned I am more than the moments when my mind slips away.
I wish I could reach back and hold your hand, that scared 12-year-old girl who thought this word would swallow her whole.
It didn’t.
Life is not perfect. It is precious. And there is so much of it still to live — between the seizures, beneath the scars, beyond the fear.
Hold on.