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I was diagnosed with epilepsy on the first day of ninth grade. I was late to school because of a rush trip to the hospital since my mother found me having a seizure and she didn't know what was happening. All of my friends made fun of me because I was late to school - I would be "the bad student" because of it. But I was proud! Throughout the year as I learned more about epilepsy I made fun of fellow ninth graders because they didn't have orders from their parents to take drugs before and after school. I earned the nickname Shake & Bake, and even had it published in the yearbook as a caption underneath a picture with me (of course it helped that I was on the yearbook staff). I told them I had Grandma seizures because I was the best grandchild ever and then laughed because I knew they were grand mal. I told them I had toxic clonic seizures because I was the coolest person ever to take drugs and then laughed because I knew they were tonic clonic. I told them that I could not eat caeser salads anymore - I had to have seizure salads. I laughed when they saw me have seizures, saying "I bet you can't do that"! And I told them about a really cool place called Rx R'us that they couldn't go to because they didn't have to take prescription meds twice a day. And my XR tegretol is way better than anything they could take because it had a T on one side and a tiny hole on the other - and I designed it myself! We all knew how to make good of something different and scary. Ah, the high school jokes. I sure wish things didn't have to change so much when I reached college. Fourteen years later, I still need to laugh about epilepsy but I'm scared to tell new people.