We first learned of Kathryn Hopcian through her sister, Emily, who wrote a beautiful piece about living with epilepsy for REI. Here's her story.

The diagnosis hit in mid-May, casting a shadow over the spring like the long winter had never ended. Thirty years old, the doctorate in full swing, and then. They came out of nowhere. Two tonic-clonic seizures three weeks apart. The first in the shower, the second in an Indiana Cracker Barrel. Sara Kennedy received her epilepsy diagnosis at age 30. Getting used to adult epilepsy has been a process, she says.

He crested the peak like it was the last thing standing between him and paradise. His feet so blistered he could barely walk, still he’d made the climb, every last step of it. From atop Draupadi Ka Danda II in northern India, Siddharth Singh Kasana peered down at the world 5,700 meters below, his heart full. Beyond the reflection of his sunglasses, no one could see the tears, hot pools pressed against ice-crusted lashes. But they were there.