Understanding

     The other day while we were participants at a school Christmas craft fair, my daughter had another seizure. My sister and her daughter were sharing a table with us and I guess my sister had not witnessed one of my daughter's seizures for a few years. After the event was over and we were trying to gather ourselves together again my sister said to me "How do you let her (meaning my daughter) out of the house?" Tears welled up in my eyes and I responded "It's very hard...." At that moment, for that minute, I felt understood. It affected me profoundly.
     We have never felt sorry for ourselves or wondered why this burden was ours to bear. I have of course, prayed that my daughter would cease to have seizures and be able to live a healthy and safe life. Our family has tried to make the best of our daughter's life with seizures: telling folks about her situation whenever possible and appropriate, participating in Purple Day, an epilepsy-awareness event and just generally being open and honest about our daughter's health--- educating others.
     What has been tough recently is the number of seizures (7 since July) the length of each of them (easily 10 minutes) and the changes in them (complex partial turning into tonic clonic) not to mention that she is now attending a huge high school with 2000 other kids. The stress of all these factors is at times overwhelming, not only for us of course, but especially for our daughter.
      As a parent your primary focus is keeping your children safe: fed, clothed, healthy and happy but first of all, safe. How do you do that when a temporarily-incapacitating neurological event could occur at any minute? Well, you rely on the kindness of strangers or near-strangers; you depend on the vigilance of the folks who are with her at school: the bus driver, the teachers, the SEAs, her friends, acquaintances and classmates. And the rest of the time you watch her very, very closely, day and night and you pray.
 

New Start

     Well, we have lived through six recent seizures, three of them in nine days, the beginning of high school, the start of antiepileptic medication, a new way of eating and the many social interactions that occur in the life of a girl in grade eight. Also, our older daughter thinks that it will be okay if I blog about her. That is a giant leap of faith for her and for me too.....
     I notice that both our girls have grown up since the summer.  They are talking to me about the people they know and others they are meeting; the two of them have a lot to say about how those different relationships are working or not working for them. Fortunately, they are both able communicators.
     Our younger daughter is getting a taste of leadership in grade four. She is helping with recycling, kindergarten lunch monitoring, composting and other activities. She relishes the opportunity to help and is especially enjoying meeting the kindergartners and making connections with them.
     Their older brother who is a police officer just lost his canine partner to cancer. It is a terrible loss for him and one that also means leaving the canine unit and now working in a new department of the police force.
     So new starts occur when something else stops; one chapter ends and another chapter begins. We are almost at the end of this year... And so it feels right to me to start again. Especially when I notice that I started this blog almost exactly a year ago. Now I am different, my family members are changed and life goes on...and on and on.