1 week Ago By Wally Lewis
It’s been 18 years since I stopped waking every morning thinking “when is it going to happen?” When will my next seizure occur? And how will I hide it this time? I had epilepsy. And I didn’t want anyone to know. On this Purple Day for epilepsy awareness, I’m proud to keep telling my story in the hope that it helps others who can’t talk about their struggles.
Wally Lewis at the 2024 NRL Hall of Fame and Immortal Induction at the Sydney Cricket Ground last August. Credit: Getty Images My epilepsy diagnosis was hidden for years through my rugby league career and then through my role as a sports presenter on Nine News in Brisbane. It was easy to hide a seizure on the rugby league field.
I would feel it coming on, and I would lie down after a tackle and pretend I had a head knock. I would have “absence” seizures – I would stare blankly and lose awareness – which could be disguised while I lay down. I didn’t want anyone to know because I thought I’d lose my place in the team.
I tried medication that worked for a while but my seizures returned. It couldn’t be hidden when I had a seizure in front of hundreds of thousands of people as I read the sports bulletin on Channel 9 in Brisbane. That was November 16, 2006.
It was always only a matter of time before a seizure and live bulletin would coincide, but I just kept taking the risk, hoping they wouldn’t. In the media coverage that followed my seizure, I didn’t say I had epilepsy. I pretended I had been feeling unwell.
It was a busy time and it all got to me. Two weeks later, I had another seizure on air. I was running out of excuses.
The next day, I told my bosses at Nine about my diagnosis. They could not have been more helpful. The idea of brain surgery was mentioned because the four drugs I had been taking were not preventing my seizures, which would get worse over time.
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