My Epileptic Life

Kindness is defined as “the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate”. Kindness is a quality I would hope all of us would possess, however, looking at the state of the world and the society we live in I often doubt that.  Recent events in the United Kingdom have created a surge of “kindness”, I have read numerous quotes posted on social media about being kind to others. My social medias have also been filled with posts describing “random acts of kindness” that people have participated in. I love random acts of kindness; I have participated in the 12 days of Christmas kindness for as long as I can remember. Random acts of kindness, when done correctly, are beautiful. One simple act can change an individual’s day, week, month or even life. The issue is being kind is becoming some sort of “trend”. Being kind to others has become an extraordinary event in people's lives that needs to be documented and posted all over social media. I have seen so many posts this past week o...

There are two definitions of secondary epilepsy. The first one is the correct, medical definition which states secondary epilepsy is where a seizure starts on one side of your brain and then spreads to the other side. The other definition, my personal  favourite  and the one we will be focusing on in this post, defines it as the impact epilepsy has on the family members of an individual with epilepsy.    In the same way a seizure can spread through the brain, epilepsy can spread its annoying little tentacles of electrical activity through a family. Obviously, I don’t mean literally. Thankfully I am the only member of my family to have epilepsy and experience seizures. While I am the only person in the family to experience the seizures, I am not the only in the family living with the effects of epilepsy. Epilepsy has a firm grip on our household and all our lives are  affected  in some way.    The hubster probably feels the effects the mo...

Can you teach with epilepsy? I suppose the short answer is yes. There are, however, a few things you need to consider before starting your teaching journey.    How often do you have seizures?   I am a prime example that you can have seizures and still teach. There is a common misconception that you must be completely seizure free to teach. This is not true. You do, however, need to consider how often you experience seizures, your recovery time and the impact seizures have on you when deciding if now is the right time to embark on a teaching career. Only you can decide if the frequency of your seizures and the impact they have on your ability to function is manageable. If you experience seizures every day or numerous times a day it might be difficult to both  train  to be a teacher and also to teach, particularly if you have a long recovery time. It is important to remember though that even if you decide right now is not the time to embark on teacher tr...