I'm not drunk, I have SEIZURES!

Fran Thomas has lived with epilepsy – and the assumptions of strangers – for three decades

- MISHAAL KHAN, ELLIE FAWCETT

Bent double on the pavement, I cling to my 14-year-old son as he strokes my back and promises he’ll get us home safely. Passers-by stare and roll their eyes, most likely wondering why I’m being sick and how I got a cut across my face. I’ve seen these looks time and time again – they think I’m drunk and an unfit mother. But they couldn’t be more wrong…

It was April 1992, six weeks before my GCSE exams, when I had a seizure for the first time. Thankfully, I was at home when I started convulsing in the bathroom and chipped my tooth against the sink as I tumbled to the ground. My mum, Gisela, then 47, was a retired nurse and stuck her thumb in my mouth to check I wasn’t having a stroke. She had no reason to suspect it was a seizure, as I’d never had one before. The seizure lasted just a couple of minutes, and doctors ran various tests, diagnosing epilepsy and putting me on lifelong medication. It changed my life forever.

Coping with a new world

For the next few years, I persevered with the medication but it made me feel drowsy and I struggled with the loss of energy. At school, I sat my exams in a broom cupboard so I didn’t risk disrupting the other students if I had a seizure. Having only been diagnosed recently, I was frightened and felt isolated.

It was reassuring that Mum had been a nurse, while my dad, Mivart, then 69, was a consultant psychiatrist. They were both pragmatic and it helped that they didn’t get too emotional.