“This is about one of the early cases in my career, a very heart-touching and emotional story of a 12-year-old kid aspiring to be a doctor in the future, suddenly while playing in her backyard, had an episode of loss of consciousness and memory for a period of 5 to 10 minutes.

The parents who were both software employees took the patient to the local hospital where a few tests were done and the child was given medication and sent home.

The child again had such episodes 4 to 5 times in the later months, but it was ignored every time, the reason being a stigma in the society concerning epilepsy, as it’s an evil eye or bad luck the person carries in the society, which is very disheartening to hear in the present time.

Finally, when the child turned 17 years, the incidence and number of episodes of seizures became recurrent about 10 to 12 episodes per day even on medications.
The child came to my OPD with all the history and medications and very minimal investigations. The first question asked by the parents of the child was whether it would be a problem in getting their child married. It was quite shocking, to say the least, as both their parents were educated and the only thing they are bothered about now is her marriage instead of health.

I felt I won’t blame the parents, should be blaming the amount of awareness created concerning epilepsy in society.

I asked the parents to sit outside and spoke to their daughter regarding her condition and what exactly she is going through.

She said just one thing: Please make me better, I want to become a doctor and my parents think I can’t do it, but if I can’t do that I will lose both my life and my career, please make me a better doctor and she broke down.

We evaluated the patient and then she was diagnosed to have Refractory Epilepsy with right-side mesial temporal sclerosis.
As the patient was in the Refractory phase with multiple medications, we opted for surgery, and the surgery went well. The child was followed up on her diagnosis for 3 years and now is completely seizure free for 2 years continuously now, on only one antiepileptic.

Now the child is pursuing her first year of MBBS and she came to my OPD saying “Thank you.”

I felt quite touched by her gesture. That is what every doctor strives for to make the world a better place for their patients to live.

But then a question pops up.
Will she be okay now? Won’t she get any seizures in the future?

The answer is we don’t know, as there is nothing in medical science that has been developed to predict a seizure.

So the next aim for me as an Epilepsy surgeon is to develop a device that is going to predict and detect epilepsy before it sets in, that is the Aura phase. As of now, we are able to save at least one life out of 100 by technology, our purpose is achieved.

I am striving hard to make this world a better place for epileptic patients, and I am making progress with regard to my purpose, every day!”