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William Beckett
My name is William Beckett and my epilepsy started in 2001 following a car accident.
My family and I had been on a day trip to Bridlington and we were on our way home when we were hit by a car coming the other way on the wrong side of the road. The driver of the car was three times over the drink drive limit and died from his injuries.
The crash affected my whole family as my wife and two children, who were aged 11 and 14 at the time, were also in the car. My wife and daughter suffered broken bones and my son escaped with scratches. I had a severe head injury and numerous other severe injuries, including compound fractures to both legs, a shattered jaw losing most of my teeth and deep lacerations to my face causing major blood loss. As a result of my head injury I developed a blood clot in my brain and had to have emergency surgery to remove it. The surgery released the pressure off my brain.
It was nine months after the accident when I had my first seizure. I remember going into the kitchen and then being surrounded by blood, but I had no recollection as how I had hurt myself. My father in law was the first to find me and I just couldn’t explain what had happened. He drove me to the hospital and while we were waiting to be seen in A&E I had two further seizures.
I was referred to the neurological department at Calderdale Royal Hospital where they carried out numerous tests and diagnosed me with epilepsy.
The diagnosis was hard to deal with and to understand. I was fortunate to have very good family support and an excellent epilepsy specialist nurse who had over 30 years’ experience but I do worry how others cope with a diagnosis if they don’t have that kind of support. I feel my seizures are now fairly well controlled – I’ve had three tonic clonic seizures this year.
The crash has affected my life drastically. I returned to work after a year but unfortunately I was unable to do my job safely and my head injury has affected my short term memory.
Not being able to work is hard, but I felt I needed to do something constructive with my time. I decided to do a college course in English and maths to try and regain my numerical skills which had been affected by my head injury. While at college I found out about an opportunity to volunteer for Epilepsy Society.
I now volunteer one day a week for the Epilepsy Information Network (EIN) at Calderdale Royal Hospital. My time in the clinic has helped me to put my epilepsy into perspective. I talk to lots of people, young and old, about their epilepsy, and I now realise there are lots of people having a difficult time and some in a worse position than myself. I hope that the information I can provide on behalf of Epilepsy Society will help others affected by epilepsy.
