Leaving

Four years ago I was in a job interview when I suffered a focal seizure.

My hearing went out in my left ear and for about two seconds along with a giant whooshing sound something overwhelmed my field of awareness and swept from left to right. As I've discovered over the last seven years since I suffered my first seizure, it is very difficult to explain the experience of a seizure. "Champagne bubbling" up my neck. "Vision compressing." Hearing going out. Tinnitus disappearing abruptly and then returning to steady-state sizzle.

But if it's hard to describe the event itself, it is not hard to relate this: I had to stop the interview and ask for time until my brain cleared. I knew on the subway ride home this was life-changing. My living has been built on speaking to groups, to customers, in front of whiteboards and in front of audiences at industry conferences. You can't ask three hundred people to hold tight while your brain settles down.

Well, I suppose you can, but I don't have the per…