National Epilepsy Awareness Month

[ericadawn16]

November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month. This year, the Epilepsy Foundation is inviting people to share videos about their experiences with it. This is Greg Grunberg whose son has Epilepsy:

300,000 Americans will have their first seizure this year. Epilepsy costs the United States, directly and indirectly, 17.6 billion Dollars! About 40% of those with Epilepsy will die because of it in a direct or indirect manner.

To learn more, including how you can help:
http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/aboutepilepsy/

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up my very best friend had it. She was the one I rode bikes with, and read books with, and giggled about boys with. It was just one thing about her, like her eyes or her hair.

And that made it much easier when it turned out that my brilliant beautiful daughter has it too.

My daughter stood up in front of her kindergarten class and explained that it was like a computer crash, and she would just need to reboot afterward. Her friends accepted it when she was 6, and 9 years later, the friends she has now accept it too. It is one more thing about her, like her laugh. It is just part of who she is.

Dealing with medical stuff from a young age has made her more flexible,compassionate, and brave. I would still rather she did not have it, but she has made the very best of it.

[marie-j-granger.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome way for your daughter to describe it. I'm glad she has accepting friends now and then. It sounds like she has a pretty great Mom, too.

(I don't mean to be a creeper, sorry.)

Thanks for posting this, Erica.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

It is a nice way of describing it. I try to laugh it off like, I always knew I was messed in the head but now I have a name for it.

Since high school, people just assume I'm a stoner and/or do harder stuff. For my first seizure and hospitalization, they flat out didn't believe me about not taking anything until the blood test came back and even then...I still got questioned.

I hope your daughter never has to go through that.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

My grandmother's brother had it, and died because of a seizure in the night. Apparently she was her big brother's greatest protector; she's never told us this, we heard it from her sister. It's strange because I'd always liked reading/writing about protective sisters long before I even heard that part, though I knew about my great uncle my whole life.

I wish he'd lived to see medicine for it, but I'm glad there's more people can do today. And I'm not sure how much medicine would've made a difference - as I understand it, his was extremely severe. He had seizures at least once a day if they were lucky, so he couldn't go to school or work or anything else.

[hermione-vader.livejournal.com]

My middle-school-aged neighbor has it. I think it started when she was in second or third grade. And I also used to know a kid who had a seizure that lasted for over an hour and left him with autism-like symptoms for the rest of his life. He was a sweet kid, but knowing that an hour had changed his life that dramatically was always so sad. He'd be about 18 or so now and I hope he's okay.

[jaiden-s.livejournal.com]

This is a slightly OT formatting comment, but that video is set to autoplay. Any way I could convince you to drop it behind an LJ cut so I don't hear Greg every time I look at my F-list?

[mountain-hiker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this. Great message, but autoplay is the bane of my existence. :/

[eloriekam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, basically this. I had several tabs open and it took me a while to figure out where it was coming from.