I was 7 years old when I first had a seizure in school. My doctors told me that this didn’t always mean that a person had epilepsy, but, after having a cluster of 3 seizures just after lunch one day, I went on to have an EEG and MRI, the results of which led to my doctors diagnosing me with epilepsy. They diagnosed me with a rare form of Reflex epilepsy known as Eating Epilepsy.

Epilepsy Jo is the woman sitting where I was sitting; from the moment a seizure starts to the moment it ends. It’s Epilepsy Jo who during a seizure picks at her clothes, fiddles with anything within reach, raises her eyebrows, and smacks her lips. It’s Epilepsy Jo who, as a seizure starts, makes a guttural noise like (really terrible) Mongolian throat singing.