Ryan – Huddersfield – Living with FND

Hey, I’m Ryan, and I already hate writing this because I don’t need people looking at me differently. But I also get that blokes don’t exactly line up to tell their stories, so online you mostly see things from a female point of view… so, alright. Let’s dive in.

When I was 17, I bought my first ever motorbike: a Honda CBR125F. She was gorgeous, black, and I named her Shadowmere (yes, after the Skyrim horse, because I’m a man of culture).

Anyway, that October, I’m riding round a bend I’d done a thousand times, not really thinking… and as I lean into it…

Boom. Straight into the back of a white Land Rover parked round the bend, lights off, blacked out, on a street that didn’t even believe in streetlights. Absolute stealth mission.

That’s where this story really starts.

Not long after, I’m at work in my dead-end call centre job, living the dream, and I start feeling rough. Then I go paler than Casper the Friendly Ghost and can barely breathe. My colleague, who’s also my mate, asks if I’m alright, and I’m there trying to stay awake like it’s a personal challenge. I keep talking on the call like nothing’s happening because apparently my brain thought professionalism was the priority while my body was rebooting.

Next thing I know, my heart’s racing faster than Lightning McQueen, they take the call off me… and I pass out.

I wake up in an ambulance.

At the hospital, they call cardiology to check my heart, and that kicks off the endless spiral of appointments for a “heart condition.” I had to wear a week-long heart monitor, looking sexy as always with wires dangling everywhere and a little bag to carry the machine like some kind of cursed designer handbag. They still couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Then COVID hits, and the appointments basically vanish. After COVID, they try to get me back in, but I keep rearranging it… and then I meet my partner and move 255 miles away, so yeah, definitely going to miss that appointment.

Fast forward: my partner notices something nobody else ever clocked — I’m having seizures in my sleep. And they’re getting more frequent. More intense.

Then I lost my voice for nearly a month. When it finally comes back, it’s like God used Google Translate to speak. I was out here sounding like Stephen Hawking.

Then I lost eyesight in one eye. Call me Pirate Ryan, I’m ready to conquer the seven seas. (That came back.)

Then I get vertigo. If you’ve never had it, imagine you’ve been out drinking all night and smashed about ten kegs, except you’re stone-cold sober and still swaying like a pendulum that refuses to clock out.

And it just keeps getting worse… right up until 10th June 2025 when…

Yeah. I died. Technically. Briefly. Not in a dramatic “walk into the light” way, more in a “seizure, stopped breathing” way. My partner did CPR and called an ambulance, and I was brought back.

Once I’m back, I immediately puke all over the floor, which was especially annoying because we’d literally just cleaned the goddamn living room. Nothing like returning from the dead and choosing violence.

I’m rushed to the hospital, in and out of consciousness, and I’m kept in for a few days. They refer me to neuro, and the tests begin.

Turns out I’ve got epilepsy and FND. No one told me there was a “buy one, get one free” offer on neurological conditions, but apparently I signed up anyway.

Since then, it’s been getting worse. The seizures come more often, and some of them are proper powerful, but I am on meds.

I cope with jokes — that’s my thing — but I also feel like a burden, and I hate that. I’m the sort of person who feels like if I’m not “top of the table,” then I’m not good enough.

I’ve got a stick now, and unfortunately, I’ve also got a chair. I told people to call me Hot Wheels because I’m fat, and when you put things in the oven, they get hot and expand, so I’m hot, and I’ve got wheels. Told my partner to call me Meals on Wheels… can’t explain that one in this post, for legal reasons (and because I’d like to stay in a relationship).

But honestly, my partner has been unreal. So supportive. Probably sick of me calling myself a burden, but yeah.

That’s my story.