Hi, I am Marina Blánquez. Today I will talk to you about my improvement on the basis of epilepsy.
Because of you have an illness, many people believe that you can’t do all things the same as others, that you won’t achieve what you decide to do, that you can’t do many things on your own in case something happens to you, all because you have a chronic illness.
But it doesn’t have to be like that this, in my case, it was hard for me to get the ESO because I often got sick and could not go to class, those years were very bumpy, but, in the end, if I wanted to do that course, which I wanted so much, I needed the ESO. I made it!, and I ended up getting the ESO like another student without a chronic illness.
I play sports, I’ve been playing tennis and my coaches know that I have epilepsy, they never made me do different activities because I have it, I was going to compete just like anyone else who doesn’t have it, and just in the same summer I finished ESO. My coaches told me if I wanted to work with them at summer camp and, until now, I have been a monitor since 3 years with young children all summer, I do the same things as a monitor as any other co-worker without the disease.
“But that even if they tell you that you cannot do things by yourself because you have epilepsy, I encourage you to get what you want, the goal you have set for yourself, you can achieve it.”
Last summer, I started to do the TCAE course (Assistant Nursing Care Technician) and, to do something that I liked, and my experience with the disease I knew things based on having gone to many hospitals, thanks to that, I understood many more things than others who have not lived it. It also helped me a lot to be better with the disease by not getting sick so many times and I could be more active and focused.
The same year, I proposed to try to get the course in one year and not leave any subjects for the next, because that course, supposedly, was done in two years, but I wanted to try to achieve it at first with all the subjects. I wanted to do it that way, because that way I could see that if I could achieve something on my own, I could finish the course in the first year!
Moreover, I am a very self-sufficient, taking into account that my chronic disease in which seizures can come at any time. For example, I can go alone on public transport, I can go alone on the train, I can go alone on the street… I mean, if you involve with the disease well, you can do everything.
By this, I mean that I had epilepsy when I was 2 years old and now, I’m 18 and having it since I was a child. I have known that I could do everything just like anyone else because, in my house, they helped me and taught me that even though I have a chronic disease, like epilepsy, I can do everything as normal as possible. That I could learn to go places by myself, I could move around cities by myself, but that even if they tell you that you cannot do things by yourself because you have epilepsy, I encourage you to get what you want, the goal you have set for yourself, you can achieve it. Don’t do what they think is best for you and think that this disease will always be with you and as better you bring it will be better for you, because you can normalize everything else.
