Cruise

     My sixteen year old daughter and my husband were just removed from a Royal Caribbean cruise " Adventure of the Seas" before it ever left port in San Juan, Puerto Rico earlier this month. The reason--- because my daughter has epilepsy and had two small seizures before the ship departed. Plane travel is tiring, changes in sleep and eating schedules often occur and our daughter has had seizures before while on vacation. She has had almost seventy seizures in her short life and we have learnt to cope with them: at school, in the car, in airports, in restaurants, at church, at Special Olympics, at Club Med even while shopping at Ikea. In every instance people have gone out of their way to assist us. Until now. In this instance the doctor on board treated my daughter coldly and uncaringly. She demanded that my husband pay $200.00 so that she could examine our daughter. When my husband declined, she retreated to her office. She did not even inquire about the anti-epileptic medications my daughter was taking or look at her medic-alert bracelet so as to determine her health history. The doctor then told them they had a half an hour to pack and get off the boat making it impossible for our family members to consult one another. The purser backed her up.
     Even the five year olds at the elementary school where our daughter does her epilepsy awareness talk every year will tell you: epilepsy is not a disease; it is a neurological disorder that affects almost one in every hundred people. People with epilepsy should be given the same treatment as anyone else. For the doctor, the staff and this cruise line to treat my family like this is unconscionable. Their family reunion turned into a week of hanging around in San Juan until everyone else returned so that they could at least have one full day together. This was a rare opportunity for my husband who lives in B.C. to see his son and grandchildren who live in Ontario. And this is a son who brings himself and at least thirty other friends and family members on this cruise every year and has done so for the last four years. All I can say is that the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has set the epilepsy awareness cause back one hundred years. If you have epilepsy don't cruise with this company. You never know when they may leave you stranded.