Gloria Mengual (GM) and Charles Gregory (CG)

MG: When I was twelve years old, I had a teacher in her first or second year of teaching and I had a seizure in her class. My seizures didn’t last very long, maybe a minute, but within that minute she had managed to get all twenty-something other students out of the classroom. And I was sitting there at my desk and I looked over to the doorway of the classroom and I could see the teacher peeking in with this scared look on her face. And I saw a couple of my classmates’ heads kind of under her face and over her face. And my math book was on the floor and so was a pencil and all these desks were empty. That image stayed in my head for years.

CG: And your family, how did they respond to your seizures growing up?

MG: I’d be coming out of a seizure and hear my father saying, ‘Why does this have to happen to her, what did we do wrong?’ My mother would often be praying over me or putting holy water on my forehead. She was determined to find me the best in terms of medicine. And there was always this hope on her part that her little girl was going to find a cure. So I would see tons of doctors and they would try many different medications. And when I was in my twenties they suggested that I would be a candidate for brain surgery. But back then, in ‘83, when I had the surgery it was fairly new. And my mother — after all those years of trying to get me cured — the thought of them opening up their daughter’s head scared the hell out of her. And I don’t think she could bear the thought of loosing me. So, that morning, she begged me not to do it. And I looked at her, I kissed her forehead and said, ‘Mommy get out of the room.’ It was a seven-hour surgery. I remember laying in a hospital room for three weeks. Man, I’ve never prayed so much in my life.

CG: How has your life changed since that surgery?

MG: It is a completely different life. I’ve gone from someone who is shy and withdrawn, scared of when I’d have the next seizure, and now the whole world is open to me.