Sara Peters and Peter Aguero: Praying for a seizure

The Story Collider

Story Collider, Inc.

Arts, Science, Society & Culture, Personal Journals, Performing Arts

4.4 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2013

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sara Peters has epilepsy, but no drugs seem to help. So she agrees to be hooked up to a machine at the hospital for days, in hopes of inducing the one thing she and her husband, Peter Aguero, dread the most: a seizure. Recorded at TEDMED 2013. Video: http://tedmed.com/talks/show?id=189377 Originally from New Jersey, Sara Peters now lives in Sunnyside, Queens with her charming, maddening husband. A tech writer whose work focuses on IT security, she is currently editor-in-chief of a Web publication for IT professionals. Sara is also a storyteller and actor. Onstage she's played a Texan housewife, an Oklahoman spinster, an Irish housekeeper, and an English android. She's been a rower, a ballerina, a track runner, a Hula Hoop instructor, and is an occasional and very poor surfer. Her favorite television show is Naruto, which is a Japanese cartoon about a teenage ninja. Peter Aguero was born and raised in the wilds of South Jersey. He is a Moth Grandslam Champion, host of Moth Storylams and an instructor for the Mothshop Community Program. He is also the lead singer of The BTK Band, NYC's Hardest-Drinking Improvised Storytelling Rock Band. Peter loves his Mom. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/. If you enjoy these stories, please consider donating, http://storycollider.org/donate

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A science story, huh?
0:04.0	Is NYU a scientist?
0:06.0	I felt.
0:07.0	I felt right.
0:08.0	And I just thought, well,
0:10.0	it was that golden moment.
0:13.0	Because science was on my side. Hey everyone, I'm Ben Lilly, and welcome to the Story Collider, where we bring you true stories of how science has affected people's lives.
0:32.4	This is a very special story. Last year, we ran a story from Sarah Peters on her epilepsy. A few months later,
0:38.8	we had Peter Aguero, Sarah's husband, tell his version of that story. We never ran it because we
0:44.2	knew this was coming. Sarah and Peter were both invited to tell the story together at Ted Med 2013.
0:51.6	So, this story is from Sarah Peters and Peter Aguero.
0:55.0	The story was recorded in April 2013 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
1:01.0	From Headman, I'm heading uptown on a crowded one train to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
1:20.6	And it's one of those times on the subway in New York where there's so many people that,
1:26.6	to scratch your nose, you have to
1:28.2	bring your hand up your body to do it, and everyone's pressed against everyone else's butt.
1:34.7	And I'm heading up to the hospital to see my wife. She's been in there for five days. She has
1:41.3	epilepsy, and she's getting an EEG done and we're trying to get
1:45.7	a seizure induced. Her parents are with her and I'm hoping to God that while they're
1:52.6	there, the seizure happens because in the 15 years we've been together her parents have never
1:56.8	seen a seizure and they don't know what it is that we're dealing with. I'm on the subway. I'm looking at the reflection of myself as we're underground in the window
2:10.6	and I just look exhausted.
	...

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