Life in fast lane ended for Scott after shock diagnosis

Published date02 June 2021
Date02 June 2021
But then, in his early 40s, came an event that would go down as the most humbling of his life. He was diagnosed with epilepsy.

When his wife, Moira, first told Scott she believed he was having seizures, he dismissed the suggestion out of hand. Epilepsy was a children's illness, he insisted. It was nothing to do with a man like him - a professional, with a degree.

The couple and their daughter, Cora, were enjoying a fun weekend in Edinburgh, where they hopped on and off trams and posed as tourists, when Moira told Scott of her fears for his health.

On the drive home to the village of Douglas in South Lanarkshire, the family swung by Moira's mum's in Symington.

Sitting on her couch, Scott detected a heady perfume and asked what it was. Then came the realisation he had wet himself. He'd had a seizure.

When he had another episode during the night at home in bed, a composed Moira had the presence of mind to capture it on video. On showing the film to a neurologist, it led to an early diagnosis of adult onset idiosyncratic epilepsy leading to focal seizures. Known as an aura, the condition can give rise, prior to a seizure, of unusual smell or taste sensations, a strange feeling in the stomach that's hard to describe, a sense of deja vu, and tingling in the limbs.

"I could not believe it. I was annoyed," said Scott, now aged 50.

"I had a career in sales of 20 years, during which I worked my way up from graduate sales rep to key account level, with accounts that included the NHS, the prison service and local authorities. I travelled up and down the country, from Manchester to the Hebrides. To go from this to having a neurologist tell you you have a condition I did not think you could get as an adult seemed surreal."

Having not experienced an extreme event such as the trauma of a severe head injury, there seemed no explanation for Scott's epilepsy, other than perhaps the stress he was under at work.

Required by law to surrender his driver's licence, Scott - who'd previously trained as a chef at night school - took time out from the rat race.

"It's okay to have a couple of months of a career break, but a whole year is a hindrance," he said. "If you say you have epilepsy, very few employers will take you on."

" Scott took a job in a kitchen, and his employers told him he was doing well. But when he asked to take time out to attend a brain scan appointment, he was shown the door with a payof.f.

"They said they were looking for a line cook, and I was too much of a...

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