Life With Epilepsy

     When our daughter was born ten days before my forty-second birthday, I had every expectation that she would be just as she seemed: a perfect, round, beautiful baby girl with slate-coloured eyes and a swath of dark curly hair. And she was. In fact as she grew, she became even more than my husband and I could have wished for: bright, chatty, quick, smiley and loving. She was exceptional to us.
     At the age of eighteen months our daughter had her first seizure. We were just about to sit down for Christmas dinner at about five p.m. on Christmas Day. I had cooked a turkey for my side of the family so there were about a dozen of us. I picked her up to put her in her high chair when suddenly she just threw up and then slumped lifelessly in my arms. My brother-in-law and father both had first aid training and they took her from me and looked her over as I called for an ambulance. The fire department arrived first and checked her out as the ambulance arrived. We travelled to the hospital in the ambulance and spent several terrified hours in the emergency ward. They examined her, took blood and x-rayed her. To this day she is very afraid of needles.
     To date, our daughter has had over five dozen seizures, most of them tonic clonic. She started antiepileptic medication in September of 2012 with some side effects.
     This is what our daughter, now almost seventeen, has to say about living with epilepsy:
     It is very hard living with epilepsy because I have to take special medication to be sure that I don’t have a seizure at school. If I did have a seizure at school I could fall down the stairs. I could actually die. This makes me feel frightened at times. I have had a lot of seizures so I have an EA go with me to all my classes. I don’t miss out on anything though. My life is the way it should be.
     For Purple Day, I have spoken to my old elementary school as well as to my LSB class at high school. I tell people about seizures and it shows people that I am a strong person. I have a learning disorder on top of having epilepsy. I thought it would be nice to talk to my class because they have their own issues so they don’t judge me. They understand. 
     One thing that I would like people to know is that I’m me and I have epilepsy and I do a fantastic job of living my life with epilepsy. Epilepsy hasn’t changed who I am.
(From the Centre for Epilepsy AGM program)