I've lived with epilepsy all my life, but a few years ago it became very unstable and I couldn't find work.

I worked from when I was 18 until 52. I was insured up to the hilt. I saved a high proportion of my salary. I believed that I was bullet proof. But now it's just desperate. I can't describe what Christmas and New Year was like this year without having any presents to give to anybody. It's so humiliating when you have had a good job and you've worked all your life. I was a ward sister in orthopaedics. I couldn't recognise myself from what was written in the Atos report. I was astonished that they could take such a high-handed view about my condition.

But, at my appeal, the decision was overturned within three minutes. Atos hadn't done the correct examination: they'd done an orthopaedic rather than a neurological one. I'd been and had EEGs and all that sort of stuff, but that wasn't considered in my assessment. When I gave all the information to a welfare rights officer, she said, "this is ridiculous".