Golden Light Awards

Searching for the Right Story By Elizabeth B. Dueweke At 18, my future felt certain. I was going to study at Smith College and become a journalist. I loved to meet people and tell their stories. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was ready to take on my dreams. My plans for my future changed a few months before graduation when I had my first seizure in the school computer lab. I stood up, looked around, and crashed to the ground. Dozens of students saw me carted out of the high school on a stretcher, their faces pressed to the classroom windows. The scene repeated itself months later. I nursed a tongue cut by clenched teeth along with my damaged ego. My doctor couldn’t give me any answers. There was no guarantee the seizures would stop. I felt incredibly lonely. My doctor said “epilepsy” and my family didn’t talk about it. I didn’t think there was an entire community of people like me. The prejudice I experienced didn’t help. I was turned away from the emergency room, dismissed as needing therapy. The uncomfortable stares, and my new doctor’s fruitless tests because he didn’t believe my diagnosis, wore me down. [...]

Amirsoheyl Pirayeshfar Amirsoheyl Pirayeshfar has had a very successful career in the field of polymer science specialising in nano biotechnology. Perhaps it is not too surprising that Amirsoheyl chose this profession as his father was a chemistry professor and his mother was a senior nursing supervisor in a children’s hospital. Amirsoheyl is grateful for the continuous support of his parents and their encouragement to follow his dreams despite being diagnosed with epilepsy at a young age. Growing up, Amirsoheyl developed a love for music playing guitar and harmonica (even simultaneously!), piano, violin and also the bells and he now plays with orchestras in Iran but also uses music as one of his primary ways to relax. However, Amirsoheyl has also combined his interest in research with his passion for music by studying how to control seizures with music and designing a bio sensor for music therapy; this led him to write a book entitled “An Introduction to Epilepsy Music Therapy”. Now aged 33, Amirsoheyl is currently a researcher in Iran Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran. To date Amirsoheyl has got six patents for projects to his name mostly for the design and manufacture of carbon fibres and associated [...]