Jeffress makes strides while taking on epilepsy

ST. PETERSBURG — Rangers reliever Jeremy Jeffress believes his long and harrowing battle with seizures and juvenile epilepsy began at 15 with a freak accident on a basketball court.

“Me and my buddy were out there,” Jeffress said. “I was trying to do some dunks and stuff. This kid literally came out of nowhere. I literally did not see this kid and I went up for a dunk and there was his basketball, right under my landing. I slipped on it and hit my head hard. My body froze. I got up, my head was dizzy and I just walked home. Didn’t think anything else of it.

“I never went to the doctor about that incident. I just went home and said nothing about it. Took a nap. That’s one thing I shouldn’t have done. I hit my head pretty hard on the concrete. That was it.”

That was the beginning. Sitting calmly on the bench in the visitor’s dugout at Tropicana Field, Jeffress talks about the tribulations he has gone through for the past 12 years with epilepsy in the hopes that his story may help others.

“It’s tough,” Jeffress said. “I’m not going to lie.”

The seizures didn’t come until years later. Jeffress was taken by the Brewers in the first round of the 2006 Draft out of Halifax County High School (South Boston, Va.). His first seizure came in January 2008.

“When I had that seizure, I lost my memory a little bit,” Jeffress said. “They were asking me who my mom was and I was looking at a strange face, not knowing who she was. It scared her, for sure. I woke up, I didn’t know what happened. They said I had a seizure, but for a while, they didn’t know what to call it.

“They thought it was sleep deprivation. After that, I had a couple more in a row. They put me on some medication, told me to take that. They still couldn’t find out what was wrong.”

It would be five years before a proper diagnosis was made as Jeffress suffered from insomnia, anxiety and muscle twitching. Simple things like brushing his teeth and ironing clothes could be a trial. The seizures didn’t stop.

“I had one when I was Buffalo,” Jeffress said. “I woke up with a pile of blood in my bed. The housekeeping lady came in and saw me.”

It was a long five years. The initial suggestion was for Jeffress to get more rest, but that’s hard to do when morning brings a flood of anxiety.

“It was very long,” Jeffress said. “I was self-medicating … doing it with marijuana. It would help, but at the same time, the rules and regulations of baseball wouldn’t allow it. I had to find out other ways to deal with it.”

Jeffress has tested positive three times for marijuana. The last one was in 2009 and cost him 100 games. One more positive test could result in a lifetime ban. Just …

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