In an instant, my palms begin to sweat. I can feel my chest tighten. I jump up and rush to her side of the bed. I make sure she's laying on her side and I wait for it to pass. 32 days. We made it 32 days without a seizure.

Today marks the fifth time that I have awoken to the horror that is my girlfriend seizing in her sleep. For what feels like hours, her entire body spasms, legs and arms rigid and a grimacing look upon her face. I rub her back and tell her to hold on, to stay strong and come back to me. This one lasts longer than usual, or perhaps it just feels that way because it has been so long since the last one. A few more seconds pass, but finally, her body goes limp and she begins to snore. I sit for a second, on the side of the bed, and a single tear rolls down my cheek. 32 days.

I make the call to her sister, who calls her mother and soon, the whole clan is up-to-date and aware of what has happened. Katie returns to sleep, only to awake a few hours later to her alarm clock. It's Sunday and she has to work - with the repeated seizures, her time off has run dry. She has no choice but to go to work. Thankfully, I don't work weekends, so I drive her to work. Groggy, sore and slightly disoriented, she walks into work and my heart breaks a little more with every step she takes. A few more tears roll down my cheek. Although I dread the return drive to pick her up from work, I welcome the solitude and opportunity for a nap and a good, deep cry. But about 20 minutes into my drive, I get a call that her director has worked it out to that she could go home. What a blessing - these seizures take so much out of her, the absolute best thing for her right now is rest.

I pick us up some lunch and make the drive over to my apartment, which, thankfully, is only minutes away from hers. I give my cat some love and tidy up some things. Making my way to my car, I realize how truly exhausted I am. Just a few more minutes and we can both lay down, get some rest and recharge. We pull into her driveway and as she walks inside, I let out a deep, long sigh. As she heads upstairs, I gather up my MacBook and a copy of "1984" and turn to follow her. But I stop, lean my head back, and I feel dizzy. Holding both items close to my chest, I stumble over to the couch and within milliseconds, tears are sliding down my face at an unprecedented rate. The anger and sadness and fear all converges and for a moment, I'm convinced that time has stopped entirely and I'm spinning.

I curse any and every holy thing I can think of, because honestly, I'm more pissed than anything. What have I done to deserve this? What has she done? And I get it, no one "deserves" to have idiopathic generalized seizures or love someone who has them. But she really, really doesn't deserve this.

Katie and I are NOT the stereotypical millennials either. We're not reliant on our parents (or each other or anyone else), we work full time and live in our own apartments. We're both college graduates - and, I might add, we put ourselves through school and have nothing but tremendous debt and pretty pieces of paper to show for it. We take care of ourselves and, more than that, we both make an honest effort to be conscientious, tuned-in young adults who contribute something to society beyond an Instagram selfie or Facebook rant. We want to create, to re-envision and know that we stand for something that matters.

Which makes these seizures suck all that much more. In a world where every day life is full of pressure, my girlfriend also has to shoulder the weight of an impending surgery (the suspected result of the seizures), qualifying for FMLA (to recuperate from said surgery and get paid) and all the while, (hopefully) warding off any more seizures. And that's just from a health insurance perspective, it is but one minute responsibility that real adults deal with.

So it kills me even more to see her suffering and in pain. To feel the weight it bares on her shoulders. To wipe away the tears that come from the overwhelming sense of just being lost. She is my absolute best friend, love, partner (in life and crime), confidant. And I hate knowing that she has all of these additional stresses to carry, with the already heavy weight of being a self-sufficient young adult.

Hearing her snore, softly as she sleeps, is the best thing that has happened today. So for now, I'll hold on to the fact that she recovered relatively quickly. I'll rejoice in the fact that she's still here with me. And most importantly, I'll be hopeful about the next 32 days.