It is quite difficult for Geraldine that there are many young children in treatment. She meets 4-year-old Jelle, who also suffers from epilepsy. And he is not alone: in the Netherlands there are about 120,000 people with epilepsy, young and old. There are patients who cannot get their epilepsy under control and who can have a seizure at any time of the day. Running a simple errand or cycling is therefore quite a challenge. Let alone grow up normally. A good diagnosis is therefore necessary, and de Kempenhaeghe helps with that.
There Geraldine meets 24-year-old Koen, who has had epilepsy since childhood and hopes for an operation. Noah, also 24, has only had epilepsy for three years and has yet to learn to deal with the disease. Like Koen, she hopes for an operation, but to gain more insight, they must first have a number of seizures while in the center.
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To induce this, they receive various therapies and have to stay up late into the night. When someone later has a seizure, Geraldine is deeply impressed. “I thought it was pretty intense,” she says. “But actually it’s very good, because you want to have an attack in this center so that they can monitor, check and investigate it. But I thought it was a bit spicy.”
During a visit from her mother, what she’s been waiting for all this time finally happens for Noah: she has a seizure. “I actually feel fine now,” she tells Geraldine when she is fully conscious again. But Noah is not there yet, because at least three attacks are needed. She doesn’t have to wait long for that, that same evening she gets two more attacks. “Of course you don’t see anything on the outside, so it’s very nice if you can show the real stories to the world,” she tells her story.
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But where Noah is happy and relieved, Koen doesn’t like it anymore. He finds it difficult not to have an attack, even though he had one just before he left. After this, Koen only has one chance that they can operate on him. “It is now or never.”
Five Days Inside can be seen every Wednesday at 8.30 pm on RTL 5 or watch the episode again at Videoland.
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