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  • I'm not sick when I run.

  • Like, I'm really, I'm just so normal.

  • You wouldn't think someone who goes unconscious like 14 times a day runs.

  • Like, you just wouldn't put it that way.

  • My name is Katie Cooke, I'm 20 years old.

  • I live in Dublin, Ireland, and I love running.

  • I was diagnosed with two types of epilepsy when I was nine years old.

  • One of which, which is frontal lobe epilepsy.

  • So at the moment I have 14 seizures in a 24 hour period.

  • They used to be 16, 17 so we're coming down slightly, which is woo.

  • - You OK?

  • - I'm fine.

  • I'm fine.

  • I was getting really bad dizziness from my medicine.

  • So, we went into the hospital and they loaded me.

  • Which is a term for epileptics when you're going on like a new medicine, and I didn't wake up until six days later.

  • I was immobile for about (inaudible) of two years.

  • I moved from being in a wheelchair to being in a Zimmer frame.

  • When I gradually started getting back into running...

  • It kind of gave me this newfound energy, I don't know why.

  • I put on my running boots and started running.

  • I feel like, it's so cliched, but you kind of feel like on top of the world, that you could do anything.

  • Like, I don't feel sick anymore, until I have a seizure, obviously.

  • Then I'll lie down with it.

  • You alright?

  • It's an amazing feeling, like all the endorphins like pulsing through your body, and it's great.

  • Like...it's honestly, like, amazing.

  • I train alone for most of my runs, like, during the week...

  • However, I do have a pal for my races, like official races, which is Dr. Colin Doherty.

  • So, I have two roles.

  • So first of all I'm her doctor, the other role I play, which is to be her partner in running.

  • And my job is to make sure that when Katie has a seizure...

  • If she's running, that nobody carts her off the course.

  • Oh, Katie's having a seizure.

  • So, before I knew Katie, she would run races.

  • And if they were in public, people would, you know, quite reasonably, insist that she be carried off the course, much to her displeasure.

  • So, my job is to say no.

  • Announce that I am her doctor and that she's fine, she'll recover.

  • And then she gets up and she runs.

  • I don't let anything really get in the way of living life at all.

  • I just don't think it's the way to go.

  • I suppose, yeah, I don't let epilepsy get in the way at all.

I'm not sick when I run.

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