Oklahoma Marine diagnosed with epilepsy seeking community support
An Oklahoma Marine told News 9 last week that he is looking for community support after receiving an epilepsy diagnosis in 2023.
An Oklahoma Marine told News 9 last week that he is looking for community support after receiving an epilepsy diagnosis in 2023.
Michael Perigo said he had his first known seizure three years after serving in the Marines, but he believes an incident during his training led to the diagnosis.
"I was overseas doing combative training and just got dropped right on my head. [I] saw stars & blacked out."
Doctors eventually diagnosed him with focal epilepsy in the temporal lobe after having multiple seizures despite being on medication to prevent them.
"He's in that unlucky percentage that doesn't get controlled by medicine, so he's considered uncontrolled,” said Perigo’s girlfriend, Megan Stump.
Perigo said his seizures are violent and painful; they happen in clusters during certain times of the month or randomly.
“He’s 6’5” and so I’m always worried, if he falls and hits his head, what am I going to do?” Stump told News 9.
Perigo even has seizures in his sleep, he added, which is not lost upon Stump.
"There's a thing known as SUDEP, which is sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, and so it's just always possible; more common with night seizures, which is what he has—so always thinking of things like that."
The diagnosis flipped their worlds upside down, the two explained.
"It's been pretty rough mentally. One of my jobs in the military was working on jet engines so I really like working with my hands and the moment I became epileptic, holding a full-time job was pretty much impossible," Perigo stated.
Perigo said he now works as a part-time substitute special education teacher at the same school where Stump works, so the two can carpool to work. He shared that he can’t drive with the condition.
"The teachers and the teaching assistants they know how to deal with all that. They deal with worse conditions. So that's kind of allowed us to venture off into an actual, I wouldn't say career, but at least I could make a little bit of money,” Perigo explained.
Still, he added, there are many days he feels too sick to work.
Doctors will monitor Perigo in September to determine the location of his seizures.
If they are centralized in his temporal lobe, he said he will need brain surgery to hopefully eradicate the seizures altogether. If they are scattered throughout his brain, then their course of treatment will be to minimize the impact of the seizures moving forward.
Perigo and his girlfriend are swimming in tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills.
If you'd like to contribute to his GoFundMe, click here.