Flashback … Sunday? (I Was on a Plane!)

I was going to post this last Wednesday upon landing, but the airline lost my bag, and I temporarily lost the ability to think about anything but the fact that my beloved stuffed bear, Bear, was potentially gone forever or about the fact that the whole ordeal was really drawn-out and frustrating from start to finish. But Bear’s home and I can be an adult again (uh…), so here’s a short post, unedited from initial time of writing, to tide you over until I have time to compose something more substantial.

I’m on a plane headed from Vancouver to Toronto, which means that it’s finally time to stop neglecting my blog after two weeks of blog vacation on the West Coast!

(I wrote the above sentence three hours ago; there are now thirty minutes left of my flight, including the “final descent” segment of the voyage in which you’re made to store large electronics, and good luck stealthily keeping your laptop out. This will, therefore, be much shorter than anticipated. What can I say: consuming complimentary [alcohol-free] beverages, eating sushi that definitely wasn’t complimentary—though it was surprisingly delicious—and getting lost in Patricia Highsmith’s Deep Water, which I’ve read before but for which I’m making an exception to my don’t-read-a-novel-twice-within-two-years-unless-for-dissertation rule, was much more time-consuming than expected.)

So, I’ll stop ignoring my blog for real sometime in the next few days. For now, here are some thoughts on travelling with epilepsy, based on this most recent experience:

1. It can suck.

I almost didn’t get on my flight, thirteen days ago, because I had a minor breakdown in the airport when I allowed myself to think about the inevitability of a spike in seizures that comes, for me, with travelling. This was a first: I don’t usually let myself be so emotional, at least not in public. Stay tuned for more in my very next entry! Preview: I got on the flight and had seizures during my holiday. I’m alive.

2. It can be totally OK.

Most of this trip with was fine. I didn’t spend every minute of it convulsing in a dark corner or lip-smacking in a needle-strewn alley, only some of them. Seriously, though, no dark corners or needle-strewn alleys, only comfortable couches and beds. #victory

3. It can be great.

Truth be told, I had some pretty fantastic times with family and friends. Epilepsy, as it turns out, isn’t the sum of my being—it’s just a part of it that can be really, really hard to get along with.

In conclusion: epilepsy doesn’t make for an ideal travel buddy, but so what? As long as I can do so pretty safely, I’ll continue to traipse across Canada/North America/the world with my seizure-y brain rather than stay home and languish in a heap of FOMO (that’s Fear of Missing Out, to save you the Googling, Mom.)

I have epilepsy. Hear me roar.

Or something.