A Salute to Tony Coelho

One thing Tony Coelho knows a lot about is the fear of the unknown. It’s something that gripped his parents from the time he was 15 years old.

That was the year he was in a pickup truck accident on his family’s farm, which is what appears to have caused his epilepsy. After the accident, he started having seizures. But it would be several more years before he got the diagnosis.

“My parents were told from day one that it was epilepsy. My parents refused to let me know about it. They knew from day one,” he said. “The original doctor told them about it. My parents took me to different doctors and after each new visit, would tell me the doctor didn’t know.

“So I went through a series of doctors and continued having seizures and it was just this mystery thing, this thing I had. I had never heard the word epilepsy. There was no reason for me to,” Coelho continued. “I believed my parents and the doctors and we kept trying to find out what was wrong with me.”

After a series of doctors, his parents started taking the teenager to what Coelho calls “witch doctors.” His parents had always believed that if a person had epilepsy, they were possessed by the devil, so they kept trying to prove to themselves that their son didn’t have epilepsy. When they couldn’t do that, they tried to eliminate “the spirits.”

“I went through three witch doctors and you know they did all of the praying in tongues and poured hot oil all over my chest and my forehead and burnt candles on my body and all sorts of strange things and I finally rejected it and told my parents, ‘No. I will not go to anymore witch doctors.’”
“When I graduated from college, I was still having these things that I didn’t know what they were. I never got frightened by them,” Coelho said. “It was just this unknown thing.”

A Change of Plans

Coelho graduated from Loyola University in Los Angeles in 1964. He was student body president his senior year and by the time graduation rolled around, Coelho had many companies making promising job offers.

But he had already made a decision—one that his girlfriend of five years wasn’t that fond of. “I told her that I loved her but that I had decided to go into the priesthood. That was a tough breakup,” Coelho admitted. “My fraternity brothers kidded the hell out of me, because they knew I was the kind of guy who liked to have fun. The Jesuits were wonderful. They were excited about my becoming a priest.”

But it wasn’t to be. Coelho went to the doctor for a medical exam, which was required before being admitted into the seminary. And that’s when he found out he had epilepsy.  “This wonderful doctor told me and asked, ‘Haven’t you ever been told?’ ‘No,’ I said. They didn’t know what it was.’ The doctor said, ‘Of course they knew what it was. It’s very clear. You have epilepsy.’”

“Then he told me. ‘You’re 4F. You can’t go into the military. You won’t be sent to Vietnam. But you also can’t go into the seminary. You can’t be a priest.’”  The doctor explained that a law of the Catholic Church, dating from 400 A.D., prohibited people with epilepsy from entering the priesthood. It was potentially shattering news to the young man with a religious vocation—but its first impact was actually liberating.

“I walked out of there feeling whole,” Coelho said. “Upset with my parents, but whole. It wasn’t the end of the world. I loved the way the doctor explained it; I understood it. All of a sudden I knew what was going on,” he continued. “He gave me medication for the first time. I never had anything before to feel comfortable with. He gave me phenobarbital.”

Coelho now takes Topamax daily. “Walking out of there, I remember clearly even now, getting into my car and thinking things were better. Absolutely. This is great. I know what’s going on,” Coelho said. “So I can’t be a priest—big deal—I can do something else. I wanted to be a priest, but you know, you can’t do everything you want in life, so I accepted that.”

That acceptance, however, was short-lived. What the doctor didn’t tell him was that California law required physicians to send a letter to the Department of Motor Vehicles to let them know when any of their patients were diagnosed with epilepsy.

A couple of weeks later, the letter from the DMV arrived. Coelho’s license was revoked. He also became increasingly irritated with his parents for not being honest with him over so many years. He decided to wait several weeks before confronting them.

“I called them and said, ‘I have some good news. I can’t be a priest, but I know what my problem is. I have epilepsy.’” His mother, Coelho continued, was the strong one in the family. “She immediately said, ‘No son of mine has epilepsy.’ I could see, feel and hear—in her tone—real rigidity. We talked after that, but never about my health—for 29 years. It was very superficial. Not a real relationship.”