All my life I have heard the story of my birth in Guyana in 1955. Born prematurely weighing only two pounds in a facility with no incubator, the staff wanted me to remain in hospital. But my mother wouldn’t leave me behind, so baby Jean was taken home. A short time later, I fell off the bed, hit my head, and immediately had a grand mal (tonic clonic) seizure.

I didn’t have any more of these seizures, but I did begin having headaches, which have plagued me all my life. Then, at adolescence, I started to develop sudden muscle jerks, sometimes several times a day, lasting a few seconds. I went to the doctor, but no one was able to tell me what these sudden starts were. Sometimes people stared, but eventually I got used to people’s reaction to my condition. Accepting that this is who I am— this is Jean—I really didn’t care what anybody else thought.

As a young girl being raised in a predominantly Indo community in Guyana, I began to question my future. In my culture, marriages were arranged, and parents wanted their daughters to marry a highly educated man because this meant economic security. Once married, wives had no choice but to stay with their husbands, even though wife abuse was quite prevalent there at the time. This culture made a deep impression on me, and at the young age of 10 or 11 I began to ask myself questions like: “Why use another person’s education and career to provide your own security? Why not provide security for yourself?”

I began to dream about a future life in which my own achievements would give me the independence I needed to live out my dreams.

My number one dream was to live in Canada one day. Dream number two was to travel to see the place where my ancestors had come from: India. To have a career working in a hospital, caring for people, was my third dream. And my fourth and final dream was to own my own place to live. Although I was only 10 or 11 years old when I first dreamed these dreams, they stayed with me—unaltered and inspirational—to define my entire life. I stayed in Guyana until I was 18, before heading off to live in England for a year. Then I made one of my dreams come true: I went to India. I didn’t know anyone at all in India— I didn’t even speak the language! I just wanted to go and experience the place I had heard about all my life. I stayed for six years.

In 1981, another one of my dreams came true. I came to live in Canada, where my family had emigrated from Guyana. I got a job as an accounting clerk in Toronto—I was always good at math and science—but I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted a more challenging job working in a hospital, working with people. I hadn’t forgotten my dream.

Once again, I went to see a doctor about my muscle jerks, and once again, the doctor couldn’t diagnose it. But this time I was sent to a neurologist for an assessment, and was given an EEG and CT Scan.

“You have a little bit of brain damage,” the neurologist said, and told me my episodes were myoclonic jerks. “You have been living without medication for so long that I think you should continue to do so, to avoid side effects.” I agreed.