It was the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, London, night three. After queuing up outside all day in the scorching heat, my two teenage daughters and I had managed to position ourselves second row from the front. We were a couple of hours into dancing and singing our hearts out when my eldest had a seizure.
While 85,000 Swifties screamed the lyrics they know by heart, the way most people know their loved ones’ phone numbers, Sophia – who had told me moments before that she didn’t feel well – was on the wet, sticky plastic flooring of Wembley Stadium.
Sophia, who’s 19, is epileptic. It isn’t photo-sensitive and she had been given the medical all-clear to attend this concert – the most epic night of her life – but I still immediately felt stupid for bringing her and her younger sister Ellie (who’s only 14) here; for putting us in this vulnerable position.
The medics soon arrived. I was about to administer Sophia’s emergency medication when one of them attempted to lift her onto the shaky, turquoise wheelchair he arrived with. This is when having a child with a disability as unpredictable as epilepsy really tests your abilities to function under pressure. Even there, surrounded by all these screaming strangers, with my daughter’s idol just metres away from us, I had to retain the awareness and communication skills to be able to question the attending medical professionals.
I told him we mustn’t move her while she was seizing. But he was impatient, given we were surrounded by thousands of people, so I got the medication into her there and then and – moments after her body began to soften and relax – he heaved her up onto the chair. The crowd behind us parted like a slick piece of choreography and I was told to walk in front, holding my daughter’s hand, while the wheelchair clipped the back of my legs like an aggressive dog. There was no time to look back and I could only wonder if my other daughter and the (adult) friend we’d travelled with were keeping up behind us.
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