Recovery: Honorable Mention, Essay Memoir
Ethan Wright's story, "Recovery," is another chosen honorable mention for the Essay Memoir category in our Climate Change Writing Contest. In this piece, Ethan dives into what life is like living with recurring seizures, and an auto-immune disease, and how he believes that the pollution consuming our planet has a direct influence on his experiences. Scroll to read!
By Ethan Wright
Practicing, practicing, and practicing, and then came my first game. I was great; I always wished of playing football, and it ended up being more than I had ever wished for. The morning of the second game, I was on my way to the school looking to get ready early. A teammate of mine was also looking to get that extra work in before the game. Luckily, he was there with me. I was told that I looked up at the sky, fell backwards, and started to seize. My forehead and arms were scraped up, and thank God my bag braced my fall, or I could’ve cracked my head right open.
Having Epilepsy for almost 3 years has been a roller coaster, filled with ups and downs, but slowly getting better. Around 100 seizures are a good amount to have for someone who wasn't born with Epilepsy. I even stopped taking my meds at one point thinking I was better, I thought I was good. It gets tiring when depression kicks in, and other emotions, problems, and events take place. Even the seemingly little things made me pissed. The whole story, on-going, it’s just tiring. Of course, it wasn't the greatest idea. I had a seizure. At one point, they even had to put wires connected to a box all over my head for 2 days. I did NOT go to school.
I sometimes joke around about my Epilepsy despite knowing that it’s serious and extremely dangerous. My heart even stopped beating once. I need to stop joking. I just hate thinking of it as me, that it’s a part of me now. Four years ago, it felt crazy to even think that something like this, this whole nightmare, would ever happen.
Going through this tough time with two auto-immune diseases, diagnosed within months of each other, isn’t only tiring. It’s stressful. It’s embarrassing. I’ve learned that there’s no need to be embarrassed no matter your appearance or who you are as a person. Although the alopecia eventually went away, my head becoming clear, on my arms, legs, chest spots remain. So, going through high school with these spots, and having seizures, isn’t the best feeling. I was always the nice, athletic, hard-working student. I would still think, “Why me? Why does this have to happen to me?” From the beginning I didn’t know how to take it.
Writing this gets to me; I really didn’t know how much I was going through. Sports, school, and training, 5 days, sometimes 6 days a week. Mornings before school, during school, and always after school. How can you not stress? Although baseball is probably the hardest and most stressful of sports, I feel happy when I play. I forget about everything. I’m in my own world. Once the Alopecia started, I grew my hair out. I didn’t want anyone to know. But they started to figure it out and asked questions. A LOT of questions. People asked about me being epileptic. They still do.
At first, I was embarrassed by the Alopecia and the Epilepsy. Then I embraced it. I even got a response from one of the most popular barbers in the country. He told me himself to embrace it, as he had a friend with the same problem. My friend Matt also helped a lot. There’s this one moment that I’ll forever remember; He told me to not be ashamed of my hair. “Nobody cares,” he said. “You can’t do anything about it.” From then on, I didn’t care about what other people thought. Many people told me the same thing, but from the moment Matt said it, I embraced it. I got my fade, trimmed it on top, and felt amazing.
Epilepsy, Alopecia, and a bunch of other auto-immune diseases definitely have to do with factories, global warming, and pollution. I can tell you that with growing up next to a factory, train track, highway, and in a city, there is a lot of pollution. Tell me my Alopecia and Epilepsy have nothing to do with this! All I know is the factory, Norlight, uses a bunch of chemicals. I have no idea what they are, but I know they’re not good. The city has been trying to get this taken care of, get the factory shut down, but are failing to do so. These factories, cars, and natural gasses that are polluting the environment and contributing to global warming are getting out of hand. This needs to come to an end. We need to start taking immediate action instead of just talking about it. Instead of overlooking the problem. We’re dying slowly. Less than 100 years from now, we might be extinct from Earth due to all the problems we’ve caused, to not only our people, but to our planet.
Edited by Samantha Flaherty