 Once again, I went to see a doctor about my muscle jerks, and once again, the doctor couldn’t diagnose it. But this time I was sent to a neurologist for an assessment, and was given an EEG and CT Scan. “You have a little bit of brain damage,” the neurologist said, and told me my episodes were myoclonic jerks. “You have been living without medication for so long that I think you should continue to do so, to avoid side effects.” I agreed. My sister was a nurse, and one day she heard something that she knew would appeal to me: Princess Margaret Hospital was offering training in the growing field of radiation therapy. This career, by combining both my strength in math and my love of patient contact, was everything I’d ever dreamed of. I secured a loan from the government and applied to the Princess Margaret Hospital School of Radiation Therapy in 1983. The school required a medical report, and it wasn’t until I read my doctor’s description of my condition that it dawned on me that I was “an epileptic”— that the myoclonic jerks that I had been experiencing since adolescence were actually a type of seizure. Fortunately, the school didn’t make a big deal out of this diagnosis, and neither did I. During most of my 32-month training period I also worked part-time for the hospital kitchen serving dinners to patients, and my epilepsy did not interfere in any way. I graduated in June of 1986 and started work as a Radiation Therapist at Princess Margaret. One day, out of the blue, I had a grand mal seizure at work—my first such seizure since the one I had as a newborn. Another Radiation Therapist caught me as I started to fall. I went to see my neurologist, who put me on epilepsy medication. Over the next while I had a couple of grand mal seizures at work, and a couple at home. My neurologist informed the hospital that I was able to work, and the hospital’s occupational health department told me they saw no cause for concern. Nevertheless, every time I had a seizure the first thing I would think about was “Am I going to lose my job?” I would lie in bed alone and worry: “If you lose your job, what is your life is going to be?” In 1989 I bought my own place, fulfilling the last of my deep-seated dreams. Although it felt great to be independent, the prospect of losing my job and with it, my home— and all the things that make me, me— concerned me greatly. What am I going to do? Everything at work went fine for a while. Then, in the mid 1990’s, some of my colleagues began
raising my epilepsy as an issue, asking my supervisor where their responsibility would lie—with the patient or with me—if I had a seizure at work. They claimed that they would be held responsible if I were to have a seizure and the patient got hurt. I had been a practicing Radiation Therapist since 1986. I had never had any accidents whatsoever. What unsafe thing were they waiting to see happen? I felt that I had proved myself. What more could I do? I approached my local epilepsy association and received support and information about seizure first aid for my workplace, plus reassurance for my colleagues that they did not have to worry about their responsibility. But the matter wasn’t over. One person in particular seemed to build up fear amongst my colleagues, and there were a lot of meetings about this issue, where I was very clear that the patient is the priority. I was moved to another unit, and it was explained to each of my new colleagues what to do if I had a seizure. A few people indicated they didn’t want to work with me, and one young woman came right out and said she was too frightened to do so. I made the point that in radiation therapy, we treat a lot of patients with diseases of the brain, one of the first symptoms of which is a seizure. I am their co-worker; if they cannot understand me, how can they understand their patients? If they are frightened by the prospect of me having a seizure, what will they do when a patient has one?
More on Jean Gobin
| 