Kimberley is 17 and currently unemployed. When she was about 6 she was diagnosed with epilepsy. Kimberley says she can’t remember anything of this time or when she was first told that she had epilepsy. She was first put on Epilim (sodium valproate) which kept her seizure-free until she was taken off her medication and the seizures returned. This happened less than a year before the interview. Kimberley was then put on lamotrigine which she is happy with.

Kimberley also has Diabetes type 1 and needs to inject insulin four times a day. She says life with two conditions is hard because’ you’ve got to think about both of them, not just about the on. She says it’s confusing to remember to take medications for both conditions at set times. She says it’s a scary life living with epilepsy, because she can never know when she might have a seizure and she gets no warning. She says stopping smoking has helped her, as well as starting to take her epilepsy medication at set times twice, instead of once, a day.

When the seizures came back, Kimberley was just due to send off for her provisional driving licence. Not being able to do that was quite upsetting for Kimberley and she is hoping to start taking driving lessons again in the future. She has a bus pass which gives her free access to all buses across Scotland.

Kimberley lives at home with her mum and stepdad. She is currently looking for work but says it’s hard. She’d like to work with children and she currently helps out at kids club as a volunteer once a week. Kimberley says she doesn’t go out a lot as she feels safer at home and she says she mostly spends time on her computer, socialising with her friends over the internet.