No history of tongue biting or incontinence

In writing this, I'm going to try to write about my experiences of epilepsy, both physical and mental, and - to the best of my ability - how it's affected those around me.

Perhaps, boring as a linear narrative can be, it will be best to start at the beginning. Especially considering how close to the end I am now. Figuratively speaking.

At about half three in the morning of 8 February 2011, I had my first epileptic seizure.

Except, I didn't. Or, rather, it wasn't my first. I'd been having them for years.

What I hadn't realised is that all of those times that I'd had a beer, or a cigarette, or a beer and a cigarette, and I'd felt that funny feeling of butterflies in my stomach and an incredible sense of déjà vu, they'd been epileptic seizures.

(The medical terms vary for what I was experiencing, but my favourite is 'absence seizure', as it's the closest description of what happens. I'm there physically, and I know where I am mentally and even that it's happening, but I can't do much about it.)

Before my first full 'complex' seizure, in 2011, I'd considered these little episodes as some weird tic, a not-particularly-unpleasant reaction to a momentary break in mental solidity.

Rather than react in any sensible manner and go and see a doctor after it had happened for the hundredth time, I'd come up with random reasons as to why it was happening myself...

Perhaps it was a case of a lack of oxygen to my brain when I smoked, I'd think. Maybe it was just the first sign that I was getting drunk. They always seemed to happen on Friday evenings halfway through my first pint, and I'd often not eaten properly to get that week's work done, so perhaps it was just a bit of light-headedness...

The point was, they were over quickly, actually felt quite nice - if slightly disorientating - and didn't stop me from doing what I wanted to do. Namely drinking and smoking.

They became regular enough that I told people about them, and started to point it out when they were actually happening. 

Thus my flatmate Jono, as one would, created a fictional character called Miso Soupy who he said would 'transport' (the word he actually used isn't suitable for this blog - I wouldn't write 'raped') me into the future - referring to the fact that I'd told him about the overwhelming sense of déjà vu that accompanied them.

He would dance around me, singing his patented Miso Soupy theme song, skipping and dancing to the tune of much-loved 80s hip-hop trio Salt N Pepa's hit 'Push It'. Which probably didn't help my bizarre sense of displacement, come to think of it.

In the summer of 2008, my beloved girlfriend Helen took me away for a year's backpacking around the globe.

I have distinct memories of when these little lapses in awareness - or, at that time, what I thought were moments of hyper-awareness - occurred. 

India, New Zealand, Chile and Brazil all stick out in my memory. When I think about it, they happened in all of the other countries we graced as well. 

I can picture exactly where we were, exactly what I was smoking and/or drinking, and my amused excitement at telling Helen that Miso Soupy was following me around the globe.

When I look back now, I thank goodness that they were just that; little, insignificant misadventures into the realms of semi-consciousness. 

If I had slipped into full seizures in a desert in Jaisalmer, trekking on Fox Glacier, fidgeting on a bus in Pucon or twatting about in the waves of Rio, I'm not entirely sure I'd be about now, regaling this half-baked story to a fictional audience of millions.

I was, in short, very lucky that my first experience of full 'tonic clonic' seizure, where one loses consciousness and the muscles spasm rhythmically - what most people would picture when they think of epileptic 'fits' - was in bed, next to my partner and lady-knight in shining armour Helen, relatively safe and sound, in north London.

This is not the first thing I've felt lucky about - for example, I'm an incredibly gifted individual who was most certainly at the front of the queue when Jehovah was handing out rugged good looks - and I'm certain it won't be the last.

Still, I think it's important that I start this story with a thank you to two ladies.

Helen, and Luck.

This is Helen. She is pretty.