Hi!

 

For those that don't know me my name is Maggie Connelly.  Since the age of sixteen I have suffered from Epilepsy, a brain disorder which is hereditary in my family.  I have coped on and off with the disease for the last eight years, although I would like to share with you my experience of one year ago.  After a series of seizures my medication was put up and changed to different levels.  I had hoped that each time the different medication would result in me returning to my normal balanced life.

At first the symptoms included migraine like headaches that would last for days on end.  I was missing a days work almost every alternate day which resulted in me having very little money to live on.  This coupled with constant anxiety attacks meant that my day to day life was becoming unbearable.  I put on 3 stone in weight which did not help my self esteem, and although my fiance was there to reassure me that everything would be ok, I felt as if I wanted to die.  After more changes to the medication I awoke one morning and I could not see anything.  The panic led me to have an immediate epileptic seizure.  I awoke to call my fiance and family were at work by this point, they all came home immediately and phoned an ambulance.  The hospital emergency ward kept me in for two hours and sent me home with, yet again increased medication.  After two month of seizures, blindness, sickness and headaches during which I had to leave my job, I finally got an appointment with the epilepsy specialist.  They told me that I was dangerously toxic through over-medication and halfed my medical intake immediately.  Over the next month or two I gradually began to feel better, I contacted epilepsy Scotland and they were very helpful towards me and along with my fiance and my close family I got back on my feet and started to feel better about myself. 

When my fiance suggested before christmas that his employers sponsored the Ignis Womens 10K, I thought that, maybe, as I had been feeling a lot better that this would be the ideal opportunity for me to aim for the top as I had certainly been at the lowest point in my life a few months earlier. The only problem being I couldn't and never had done any running before!

After Christmas I set out with the great help and coaching of my stepdad, through freezing cold dark nights and heavy snow and rain, to gradually, doing a little more every day, pound the streets of Clydebank...

3 months later I am delighted to say that yesterday I completed a full 10K, and have lost all the weight I put on through that terrifying time.  I will be forever grateful to Epilepsy Scotland for the help, encouragement and guidance they gave me over the last year.  Therefore, I am running the 10K in aid of this great organisation and would be very grateful if you could spare whatever you can to enable them to continue their fantastic work.  I know that personally, if it wasn't in part for them, I do not know if I would be alive today.  Thank you and all my love...Maggie,

 

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