Seeing Sparks

The Buoy

He'd got through so much before this. A little like a buoy, buffeted by strong sea winds and engulfed by vindictive waves but still left floating on the ocean surface after a storm. People said he was strong, brave, a role model. He got knocked down once or twice but clambered back to his feet.

None of that felt true right now.

He hated the lifeless side rooms of hospital corridors. It was never good news when you were shepherded out of the way, taken to be seen by one of the more senior doctors. If Stephen had learnt anything about spending time in hospital it was to hope you were only ever seen by the juniors – to be so little of a concern that the consultants barely looked in your direction.

He was regretting his decision to go to the hospital alone. He hadn't told either Ant or Dec that he'd been asked to go back in. For some reason it had made sense at the time to face this one alone even if the phone call and the same-day appointment had instantly rung alarm bells in his head. They were meant to be having a break before I'm a Celebrity though. He didn't want to disrupt another of their days off.

And now he was sat in a room, the walls squeezing in around him as his thoughts threatened to consume him. He wondered what people imagined the inside of his head to be like. No one seemed to understand that it was rarely silent up there – even when he was quiet in real life, often he was shouting at himself on the inside. His head rarely stopped whirring even if he outwardly appeared to be stuck.

The consultant who had just been talking to him had quickly left to take a phone call, his mouth lifting apologetically at the poor timing. Stephen wasn't sure he could muster any sort of amusement towards the situation. He didn't mind being left alone either, not sure he wanted to hear the conclusion of the conversation that had started with the news that they had found evidence of epilepsy in his latest test results.

"Hypoxia can lead to this in some cases," he'd been told calmly, as if his world wasn't turning on its head for the umpteenth time. "The delay might seem unexpected but we can't rule out the possibility that you have had other seizures in the past that have been harder to detect."

Stephen was too busy trying to get his head around the news to begin considering the different sorts of seizures he might have been having. The only feeling that he'd been left with the two times he'd been caught in the midst of one was bone-deep exhaustion. His limbs felt like lead and the world swam in front of him, people's voices muted as if he was on the other side of a window to everyone else. It was complete detachment, from himself and reality, and he didn't want to experience that feeling again.

They were considering the possibility that some of the lapses in concentration he'd experienced were just another form of seizure. But like so much recently, it seemed almost impossible to figure that out for certain. Stephen liked certainty, especially when it came to his health, and recently he couldn't remember the last time someone had been able to give him a firm answer to anything.

"We can try to control the symptoms with medication," the consultant had explained, "Anti-epileptic drugs do come with side-effects though and can even exacerbate your symptoms if we don't choose the right one. It might take some time to figure out the right balance."

The thought of more frequent seizures was almost enough of a reason for Stephen to refuse the medication entirely but there was no avoiding the fact that he'd had two big seizures in the last month. It didn't feel sustainable to carry on like that – he couldn't imagine living with the threat of an episode like that every few weeks.

To try and ignore the long-term implications, he attempted to focus on the here and now. There were far less important things to consider, after all. He had to work out how to talk to people about what he'd just been told. Ant and Dec were sure to fuss over the fact he'd found out the news alone. They would probably drop everything, like they had so many times before, in an attempt to make all of this easier for Stephen. A pre-emptive feeling of guilt was already settling on his shoulders.