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Sari Huttunen has suffered epileptic seizures since childhood and admits some side-effects are embarrassing experiences ‘no grown-up wants to have in public’ |
Camden | Health | Epilepsy sufferer Sari Huttunen | Family doctor | Finland
Epilepsy sufferer calls for more funding for research as she tells how she copes with condition
STILL raw from the mysterious death of her husband, Sari Huttunen’s mother must have feared the worst when she couldn’t wake her eight-year-old daughter from an afternoon slumber one hot summer’s day.
When the family doctor diagnosed Sari with epilepsy, her grieving mother’s hopes to provide her only offspring with a “normal” childhood appeared shattered. And Sari’s childhood dreams of becoming a rally driver, deep-sea diver or pilot, however fanciful, were dashed.
“I only remember the feeling that I was flawed,” said the 40-year-old, who lives in Aldenham Street, Somers Town. “I was in denial and tried to carry on as normal, but looking back it was a mistake not to tell my classmates what was going on with me.
“When I’d have a seizure in school, children being children were there laughing. One teacher thought shaking me could somehow shake the seizure off me.”
Epileptic seizures are caused when the electrical signals which pass between nerve cells in the brain are interrupted.
It is widely believed they can be triggered by flashing lights, alcohol, stress or shock.
Sari has about 20 partial seizures every month.
“It starts with an electric sensation down the left side of my body,” she said.
“For that moment I just wait and hope for that moment to pass.”
When marketing graduate Sari was living in Finland, where she was born, she worked as an importer.
She even had a driving licence for a period when the seizures seemed to stop.
Since she arrived in England in 2001 she has studied accounting, politics and web design and at one point was a photographer at Madame Tussauds.
In recent years she started to experience seizures during which she loses consciousness, making it increasingly difficult to work full-time.
Sari said: “When I lose consciousness I’ve had incontinence and experiences no grown-up wants to have in public. Afterwards I’m really confused.
“It’s embarrassing and you wonder what the employer thinks about it all when they end up having to send you home.”
The medication she takes, Oxcarbazepine and Tepiramate, causes side-effects such as memory loss and deterioration to her cognitive capacity, which Sari tries to counteract through reading and Sudoku puzzles.
She advises passers-by to roll a person having a seizure on their side or into the recovery position with something soft under their head.
The National Society for Epilepsy recommends emergency medical help should be sought if the person is having one seizure after another and is unconscious.
Sari remains hopeful that a cure can be found.
“We should really pour more money into brain research,” she said. It’s really sad. Our brain is our most important tool and we know very little about it.”
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