Photo: Martha Dominguez de Gouveia | Unsplash
Keri-Rose Tiessen is on a mission to support those with epilepsy. She was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy that causes her heart to stop when she is having a seizure. Thanks to medical care from Vancouver General Hospital’s Seizure Intervention Unit, she is alive and well. And, Tiessen is now serving as a nurse in the very unit that saved her life. She has also become a spokeswoman for others with epilepsy and recently addressed the Canadian Association for Neurosciences Nurses. She is crusading against the stigma faced by those with the chronic disease of the brain that causes seizures. “There is a stigma around epilepsy,” said Tiessen, who for a long time hid her epilepsy. “Unfortunately, culturally, some people deem that, you know, maybe you’re possessed. And there’s just the regular stigma that we can’t do anything, we can’t function, that we’re disabled people who can’t contribute to society and do the things we want,” Tiessen said. “For a number of years I didn’t tell anyone that I had this, I’m kind of going in the opposite direction now.” Today, at 39, she’s able to play hockey, swim in open water, hike and run, drive a vehicle — all the things she loves and once was told she couldn’t do anymore.
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