My Epileptic Life

I woke up this morning and the first thing I thought was “what the heck is going on”. I felt SO unwell!. I can’t even explain it!.  I had the worst headache, was freezing cold and ached all over. Kind of like when you have a bad cold ... only way worse!.  It’s a strange sensation to feel because technically you’re not unwell. I don’t have a cold or a bug or anything like that but my brain is just done for the day.  I’ve been super busy recently with work and school and training and home life and all that other stuff, and I had a couple of infections a few weeks ago, so I think what’s happened is my brain is just worn out.  I had a massive list of jobs I wanted to get done today and I have done none of them!. I’ve spend most of the day in bed with two duvets, a blanket and two King Charles cavs.  My original plan had been to take a couple of paracetamol and ibuprofen and then just push through and get stuff done. After my 4th dose of pain killers (...

If I could go back and tell my 23 year old self anything after my epilepsy diagnosis this is what I would say.  Although it feels like the end of the world right now, it’s really not. This is just the start of a difficult but amazing journey. Don’t listen to that ridiculous neurologist who has told you you will never teach, or study, or graduate. Don’t listen to the medically trained fool who has told you you will never be able to run half marathons again. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  You are stronger than you think you are, you can do this. You have never listened to anyone who has told you no, so don’t start now. It’s time to put your big girl pants on and get this journey started.  You have the most amazing friends and family behind you, even though you can’t see it right now, they are going to push you along. Sometimes you’re going to get mad at them and that’s ok but remember everything they do they do out of love.  You are going to mee...

The teenage and revision dramas have continued this week and I have found myself sounding like my dad more and more each day!!! I must have paced up and down the kitchen/hallway/living room at least once a day, ranting and pointing to my head while asking the teenager if anything I am saying is sinking in!!  To be honest, I can understand in a way his reluctance to revise ... even after all these years I still break out into a cold sweat every time he produces a mock maths paper!. Thankfully my G.C.S.E days are well behind me, unfortunately for the teenager his are not!.  This week we banned the mobile phone on an evening , in the hope that without a constant supply of YouTube videos he will get bored and resort to revision as entertainment. When this decision was announced you would have thought we had told him we were chopping his arm off!!. The look of distress on his face was so bad that I actually started to panic that maybe his vital organs were somehow attached...

I am always saying that I’m not my epilepsy. I’m not my condition. I am far more than that.  If you have read previous blogs (which I hope you have) you will already know bits about my life, my family and my job. ... if you love the stories about life with a teenager then please keep on following this blog because there are many more of those stories to come!  For this blog, however, I wanted to expand on the fact that I am not my epilepsy and share with you all 10 facts about me. Not just facts about my family or epilepsy but the things that make me me.  P I wasn’t born with epilepsy, I developed it in my early 20’s  This is the only fact relating to epilepsy I am going to share but I think it’s important that people know I wasn’t born with it, you can actually develop epilepsy at ANY age  I am super academic and love to learn  I have been called a nerd on many occasions and I’m totally fine with that!! I love learning and studying and r...

Epilepsy and toxic friendships  If we are all honest with each other, and ourselves, we will all agree that we all have experienced at least one toxic friend in our lives. If you don’t know what a toxic friend is it’s a friend that isn’t good for your wellbeing. That friend that is always causing drama, or putting you down or that friend that only talks to you when they want something or talks about you behind your back. Those are toxic friends.  You don’t have to have epilepsy to have toxic friendships but I have found that I have experienced more of them since my diagnosis.  Recently I decided to cut all those toxic people out of my life and let go of all the negativity that went along with being friends with them. It just wasn’t good for my emotional health to have those people in my life. Let me give you a few examples of some of my experiences of toxic friends and the reasons why they were so bad for my health.  First up we have the “self obsessed fri...

People have asked me before what my family think about my epilepsy. It's a bit of a difficult question to answer because I don't think they really think anything about it. Epilepsy, and it's many side effects are just a part of me and a part of our lives. While many people discuss the weather, politics or sports over the breakfast table, we discuss seizures, side effects and any other epilepsy related topic you can think of. (When I say we discuss it over the breakfast table what I really mean is at some point everyday we discuss something epilepsy related .... I don't think we have ever all eaten breakfast together..in fact I don't think the teenager even eats breakfast .... he's too busy moaning about life). Determined to answer the question I asked the most significant members of my family what they think of my epilepsy and here is what they had to say. First up the teenager " Don't really know, I don't think about it, it's just a common t...

I have the pleasure of working with some inquisitive 16 year olds ... and in fact some inquisitive older students ... who are not backwards in coming forwards and like to ask questions. Something I think is fantastic I might add, if you don’t ask you don’t know!  Recently a couple of people have asked me about my medical alert band, what it is and why I wear it.  Here’s my answer in a nutshell, I wear it to alert people to my medical condition and to help them possibly save my life should a serious seizure ever occur. That’s basically it.  Why do a lot of other people not wear one you might ask .... I have no idea.  It’s not like the olden days when you had leprosy and had to carry a bell with you. You don’t have to walk around wearing a sandwich board saying “I have epilepsy”. Some of the alert bracelet and bands and even necklaces are really funky now. There is a huge selection to choose from and I would go as far as to say there will be at least one t...

Raising a teenager  Tears, tantrums, door slamming, attitude and threats to leave are a regular occurance in our house ... mainly from me!  Anyone who has a teenager will know where I am coming from when I say raising a teenager is hard work!!!!  The teenager seems to think that clothes on the floor create more insulation for cold mornings, cups and plates are washed by a fairy and that there is no need to use actual words anymore as the cave man language is making a come back.  Throw in a few other teenager boys that randomly appear in my house a couple of times a week... bringing with them an odour of sweaty feet and lynx, constant references to PlayStation games, and no desire whatsoever to revise for up coming exams and you have pretty much summed up the life of the teenager.  As time goes on I find myself sounding more and more like my Dad everyday, using phrases such as “you sound like a heard of elephants up there” , “you’re either in or you’re...

Epilepsy .... no justification needed  I don’t know about you guys but I can’t count the number of times I feel I need to justify my epilepsy and actions. I must justify my reason for doing or not doing something because of my epilepsy at least once a day.  Why do I do that?? Why do I feel I always need to justify myself?  Currently it’s 11.45am on a Sunday morning and I am sat in my pjs and hoody. Where should I be you might ask?..... I’m a Mormon so I should be at church. I’m not at church however because I was poorly on Friday and after trying to overcome the effects yesterday I am now even more exhausted today. .... While I don’t mind sharing my reasons for not being where I maybe should be with you all I shouldn’t feel I have to explain myself. I shouldn’t have to justify why I’m not at church or why I haven’t been shopping yet or anything else and yet I feel a need to constantly explain to people why I do or don’t do certain things. I have to tell people so...

I told you all the blog this year would be a little deeper than last year. Well strap on your goggles and throw your water wings away because we are diving in!! I really want to talk about mental health and how it relates to epilepsy. Mental health is such a taboo subject and I don't understand why??!!. Why do we live in a society where it's acceptable to be drug dependent (or whatever we are calling it these days) but not acceptable to have mental health difficulties?. Personally, I think it all relates back to the view that in order for you to have anything wrong with you it must be visible. You can't see mental health so clearly it doesn't exist. What can I say .. we live in a world of fools and ignorant people. Epilepsy and mental health problems don't necessarily go hand in hand, it is however, extremely common for those with the condition to experience some sort of mental health difficulty in their life. While I truly believe any difficulties I have are re...

January is always a month of new goals, new dreams and new resolutions. January is the time when everyone decides to change their lives, slimming group membership doubles and the gyms are full of new members who most likely will leave their membership cards in their purses gathering dust by the time March rolls around. There is nothing wrong with setting yourself goals for the year ahead and starting the new year with a positive mindset. In fact it’s a great thing, but I don’t want to talk about the positive side , instead, I want to focus on what it’s like starting a new year with a chronic medical condition. My goal for this year, alongside losing a few pounds, is to be totally open and honest about what my life with epilepsy is really like, the good, the bad and more often than not the ugly. I would like to think that I am naturally a positive person. I do my best to always see the good in people and situations and my house is always full of laughter, granted a large perce...

It is crazy how it is now 2018!!!! Where did 2017 go! I would love to tell you all that I have a huge list of resolutions and goals for this new year and how excited I am to accomplish them all. I would also love to tell you that I am taking the “new year new me” thing seriously and have spent the past two weeks eating nothing but salad and super green smoothies. That is however so not the case. I don’t have the time or the energy to even write a list of resolutions, nevermind actually achieve them!. As for the smoothies I am lucky if I get chance to grab a banana in a morning, so you can forget about whipping out the food processor (not even sure I own one) and making myself a smoothie, even if it does contain all of my five a day, every vitamin I could ever need in my life, 6 different types of antioxidents,essence of diamond and a sprinkle of unicorn horn. Lets be honest life is demanding. It’s even more demanding when you have epilepsy ….and are raising a teenager. In fact, ...