WHEN she was just 17 years old, life as Emma Delane knew it changed forever when she experienced her first seizure in a local movie theatre.

The otherwise perfectly healthy teenager – who was studying for her A-Levels and had secured a place at the University of Bristol – was rushed into hospital where she remained in a coma for weeks.

As doctors struggled to get to the bottom of what had caused Emma's mystery illness, her parents were told to prepare themselves for the worst.

Speaking exclusively to Fabulous Digital, Emma, 35, from Borehamwood, Hertforshire, said: "I was in a coma for four weeks and having multiple seizures a day.

"The doctors didn't think I was going to make it, my parents were getting ready to say goodbye and no one understood because I'd been fine -I'd never used drugs, they couldn't work it out."

As Emma continued to deteriorate, a scan revealed that her brain had swollen to the size of a watermelon and she was diagnosed with viral encephalitis – an extremely rare but serious condition which causes the brain to become inflamed.

What is Epilepsy?

• Epilepsy is a condition of the brain which can disrupt the electrical communication between neurons in the nervous system
• This often leads to seizures, a sudden event that can change a person’s awareness, behaviour or feeling
• The condition is typically diagnosed when a person has two or more unprovoked fits separated by at least 24 hours
• Epilepsy can begin at any age, but it tends to affect people either in early childhood or who are older than 60
• Around three per cent of incidences are triggered by flashing bright lights or patterns, which is known as photosensitive epilepsy

Although she'll never know exactly how she contracted the dangerous virus, doctors believe that her intense school work and active social life compromised her immune system and allowed it to target the brain.

When she was omitted from hospital, Emma was told that she would temporarily have epilepsy – but unfortunately, it continued getting worse and worse.

Suddenly, the world became a lot smaller for Emma and her dreams of studying Political Science and one day becoming Prime Minister drastically changed.

When she was 23, Emma had surgery to remove seven and a half parts of her brain to ease her symptoms – and after that sadly failed – she now takes five different medications three times a day.

On a bad day, Emma can have as many as eight seizures – which prevents her from working, using public transport and she hasn't driven since the incident at the cinema.

18 years after her first seizure, Emma is now a proud mum-of-two and says her son Harry, eight, daughter Arya, five, and husband of nine years Joel are her "whole life".

But one of the biggest challenges Emma has faced with her epilepsy is how it has made her two children a target of bullying in school.

Emma experiences both absent seizures (where she may still look 'normal' but will start dribbling from one side of her mouth) and tonic-clonic seizures where she will pass out with only one second warning.

On Harry's first day of school, Emma had a fit in the playground in front of other children and parents and dropped to the floor.

Although the school were aware of Emma's epilepsy, the mum said: "His year have seen me falling down a lot and it looks like weird behaviour to them."

What's more, Emma's fits have also been noticed by Arya's Year One classmates who, until recently, believed that she was "falling asleep" and assumed she was "lazy".

Although Harry would proudly boast about his mum's surgery, his class mates quickly began taunting him about it.

Describing the awful things bullies have said to both her children, Emma said: "It's pretty much always the same thing – 'you're stupid and brainless just like your mummy', 'your mummy is an idiot', and 'your mummy's got no brain.'"

As Harry is a "very conscientious" and "very sensitive" child, he didn't immediately tell Emma about the bullying for fear it would upset her – but she noticed her eldest begin to lose confidence in himself.

After having weekly lunch time sessions with the Nurture support group at school, Harry did begin opening up to his mum about the bullying.

She said: "Eventually he started telling me and that was the way they dealt with it with him.

"Even now he still gets upset telling me because he says ‘Mummy please don’t cry, please don’t cry’ when he tells me what someone’s said."

Naturally, the bullying also affected Emma at first and she said: "It’s not funny to laugh at me when I’m on the floor dribbling, that’s the thing that really upsets my daughter because that can happen as well. But that’s always going to be part of their lives."

Arya also began experiencing bullying at a similar age and, after Harry told his mum that he'd seen her walking around the playground on her own in break times, Emma decided that she needed to confront the teachers.

The mum said: "Arya is a really confident, sassy, amazing girl. And then I found out people had been saying the same things to her.

"She just didn’t want to hear it and she was upset. She tried to explain what was wrong with me and she couldn’t because she’s five.

"I went in and spoke to two of her teachers who were amazing and one of them was quite emotional because she had been my son’s teacher too.

"I gave them a book from Epilepsy Action called My Mummy Has Epilepsy which is brilliant for their age group and I just said to them, ‘I’ve been reading this with her this week just so she understands’.

"Her teacher read the story to the class and said ‘Arya’s mummy has this’ and she got my daughter to get her friends to ask her any questions and they did.

"And they were really interested and it really helped them understand and it really helped her feel better."

Despite being angry and upset about what the bullies had said to her children at first, she instead wanted to educate her children's classmates about her invisible illness – and be more open with other mums at school too.

She continued: "I honestly couldn’t believe that children would say stuff like that. But then I realised they’re children and they don’t understand.

"Harry was more worried about how I was going to feel about him telling me and I felt like I wanted to burst into major tears – which I did after in private – but you have to be strong for your children.

"I’m not embarrassed of who I am, all their friends know, all their parents know what I have. The thing that upset me most was how he was more worried about me than himself."

They always say the same thing – 'you're stupid and brainless just like your mummy', 'your mummy is an idiot', and 'your mummy's got no brain'.

Naturally, Harry and Arya are used to seeing their mum have fits.

She said: "If we’re in the street or if we’re at home – he’ll call daddy and he helps me count which we’re always told helps me come out of it.

"And then he just calms me down when I’m out of it which is wrong for someone of his age – but he was born knowing I was this way and doesn’t know anything different.

"Arya always holds the phone to Facetime while he does the counting and then they say, ‘Mummy are you okay? What can we do for you?’"

Emma's husband Joel – who works as a web designer – always arrives home an hour after the children and the couple have safeguarding procedures in place which means Emma never cooks or bathes the children when she's home alone.

• My Mum Has Epilepsy from Epilepsy Action – download now

Joel has been in Emma's life throughout all the ups and downs of her condition, after they met on a night out when she was 20.

"He’s not only understanding but he knows what will help me," Emma said. "So even though it’s the worst thing that he has to spend Saturday afternoon alone with the kids when I should be there – like at a party or whatever – he wants me to sleep because it helps me.

"And he’d rather that was better than I was out with them.He’s incredible because he’d never met anyone with epilepsy before he met me so I’m not sure he knew what he was taking on.

"He sat by my side through my brain surgery, he visited me every night, he bought me food when I started eating again.

The couple have dealt with the bullying together – but Emma admits it's something they'd never thought they'd have to think about.

She said: " Before we had children, we had to consider a lot of things and it was mainly about health – it really never crosses your mind.

"I don’t want to call it bullying but I learnt how much people do not understand about epilepsy. I didn’t know what epilepsy was before I got it so I don’t blame anyone.

"I never put into my brain that this would happen – especially in primary school."

A spokesperson for Epilepsy Action said:

Having a parent with epilepsy can sometimes be hard and upsetting for any child. It’s sad to hear that Harry and Arya have had negative comments in the playground about their mum. No child should ever be treated differently because their parent has epilepsy. Epilepsy is a complex condition which has a wide-reaching impact on everyone. Sadly, there is still a lot of misunderstanding and fear around epilepsy. However, by taking the time to learn about it, together we can dispel a lot of this prejudice and negative attitudes. Epilepsy Action is here to help with a range of information and resources to help families affected by epilepsy. For advice and information, call our freephone helpline on 0808 800 5050 or visit epilepsy.org.uk”

Our children’s resources can be found here: https://epilepsy.org.uk/info/children

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