Favourites

      In no particular order: my children, my husband, family, old friends, prayer, books, milk chocolate, rain on the roof, friendly dogs, old films, chickadees, live theatre, silence, orange roses, good jewelry, hummingbirds, worn denim, poetry,  unexpected gifts, pink wine, laughter, warm slippers, crawfish, painting, a sunny day, hearts of any kind, citrus, stone eggs, sunflowers, roosters, loud singing, a good mystery, turkey dinner, special days, anything blue....

Numbers

     Our daughter had a good run with her seizures for a while: seven months without a tonic clonic, seven weeks completely seizure free and then boom, two seizures, one of each in one day which then means a trip to the hospital in an ambulance and then some blood work and monitoring. We try to make sense of this major change in things but we can't; we can blame stress, fatigue, whatever we want but what does then make sense is a change in medications. Starting over is very hard for our daughter who is waiting to be seizure free: waiting to drive, waiting to be free of headaches, waiting to be more independent, waiting to be like other seventeen year olds, waiting, waiting, waiting.....
     Here are some of the numbers: eighty seizures in her lifetime, sixty-five of them since high school started, twenty of them complex partial, so sixty of them tonic clonic, a dozen trips to the hospital, dozens more tests of every description, fifteen pills a day and one in every hundred people in the world is dealing with a similar situation, maybe better, probably much worse.        
     Some days it feels huge for our daughter and overwhelming for us but most days is just is. We are blessed with terrific care from British Columbia Children's Hospital. We are living in a time when huge strides are being made in epilepsy research, awareness, and education. We live in a country which looks after our medical needs and therefore lessens the load substantially. And every day, there is one sweet girl living her life with epilepsy--- our girl.

Story

 

     Everyone has a story; some sad, tragic even, joyous or boring but we all have one. I have noticed some folks using a different approach these days in asking others about their stories.
     Yesterday was a two seizure day for our older daughter and after spending about four hours in the emergency ward, the attending physician said to our daughter, "Tell me about your seizures." What followed was probably more information than he wanted or even needed but it was more rather than less and so a successful question to ask. I also learnt a lot about her day by listening.
     On the other hand, when we came back from Las Vegas the Canadian border guard, after asking where we had been said, "Tell me about Las Vegas." I was feeling nauseated after a bumpy landing but glad to be home and proceeded to tell him what I thought about Las Vegas. It was probably not the information he was looking for.... but maybe he'll think twice about vacationing there!
     When I worked with hospice the client's story was the focus of our work with them. Whether they were working with hospice volunteers or as part of a loss support group, whether their story came out in one large piece or in tiny pieces over a long period of time, it was their story and our willingness to hear it that gave the client what they needed: a safe, caring place to share the story of their remembered one. The way that I got started writing again was by sharing the story of our pregnancy losses in the hospice newsletter. It was then that I learnt the powerful healing quality of personal story-telling whether spoken or written.
     What is your story? Who needs to hear it? How do you want to tell it? Maybe today is the day that you begin....