About

Terri Pajares, President of Epilepsy Awareness of America began having epileptic seizures when she was young.  Her family and friends never knew she had epilepsy because it is not necessarily easy to notice.  Her best friends called her a “space cadet” a lot as they were playing together.  She knew it was a joke.  She always came out of her seizures fine so epilepsy was still not recognized.  She went through high school and so it was never even known she had epilepsy until what happened in college.  

While she was in college, she had two seizures in the same class on different days but was diagnosed with epilepsy and medication worked but after awhile the medicines stopped working even after going through several medications due to the side effects of most of epilepsy medicines especially how tired they made her feel, the loss of balance, and more.  Her seizures became so frequent that she had to give up driving and rely on friends and family to get around. Terri lost her independence and really started losing memory.  

Terri was able to get her first surgery in 2020 on the left temporal lobe, which is where your short-term memory exists.  Seizures started happening on the right side of her brain, so in 2022, she had a device implanted that works like a pacemaker, it is called the RNS.  The RNS senses the seizure coming on and shocks against it to prevent it.  

Terri’s life changed so much after the first surgery that she was inspired to start Epilepsy Awareness of America to help those whom have epilepsy to be able to pay for medical procedures and/or surgery and to help the family members because it truly affects the whole family not just the individual whom has epilepsy. 

Terri truly believes that epilepsy is not given the awareness that it needs and she wants to get knowledge out to the public.   She also knows that people with epilepsy need the time to communicate to others who understand what they are going through and to know they are not alone.