There are many symptoms that go along with seizures. Every person’s symptoms are different.
Epilepsy.com provides a list of common symptoms of seizures.
It is important to recognize symptoms of seizures so that a person can tell what’s happening to them or their loved one when a seizure is oncoming. The symptoms can also help doctors to pinpoint a type of seizure pattern and find a solution or medication to help prevent the seizures in the future.
Reminding everyone that the entire month of November is Epilepsy Awareness month. Stop by https://www.epilepsy.org/ to learn more about this disorder and how it affects the lives of so many throughout the world. Be sure to check out the seizure first aid section to learn more about this disorder and how to help in case you are ever faced with someone who suffers a seizure. Knowledge about any disorder is the key to making it better!
As I was sitting here, trying to think of a topic to write on today, I read this on the Epilepsy Foundation of Arizona’s Facebook status: Fact of the Day: Epilepsy is never contagious.
And it’s not. You can’t catch Epilepsy. It just happens. Sometimes it’s triggered by some major accident. Sometimes just from a simple change in the body. Some people inherit it, as my daughters and I have.
Epilepsy is NOT a disease, it is a disorder. It is a unbalanced electrical reaction of the brain. I describe it as computer overload. When a computer is overloaded, it will crash and shut down. This is the same reaction the brain gives when a seizure happens. The brain processes and overloads, then the body shuts down or rather seizes.
For my girls, this happens when they are learning a LOT of new things. It can also happen when we’ve had an exhaustive weekend like this past weekend was for us. The girls will become overly-tired and I begin to notice their body fighting to stay on track. They will have mild jerks or twitches while awake. They will act “spacey”. They are excessively whiny and nothing can make them happy. At their worst, they will fall into a convulsive seizure.
We have dealt with this disorder actively for 7 years now. I know the signs and when I see them, I have the girls take a “rest” day. We lay around, rock, love on each other, watch tv, read and do simple activities. We also nap and go to bed early to allow our bodies plenty of rest. Doing these things usually keep our seizure activity low and gets the girls back to normal within a day or two. Homeschooling makes this easy for us to take “rest” days as needed.
Epilepsy never completely goes away. It’s always there, even when it’s outgrown. It could reoccur at any time but it is NOT contagious. It doesn’t rub off on you when you bump into my child. It doesn’t contaminate your skin when my child is seizing and you touch their drool or vomit, as the case may be. And it is not caused by Demons as some people believe (yes there are those who actually do believe that).
Epilepsy is a disorder that can be controled with routine, structure and most of the time with medicine. Sometimes surgery or a special diet helps to control it (we will discuss more about those later).
Dealing with this disorder is an everyday part of our life. Each day we wake up is a blessing and each day we wake up without any signs of seizure is an even bigger blessing. Seizures happen unexpectedly, so we must always be prepared for one to suddenly “pop” up. This is our life.
Today when I got online I found out extremely sad news about a friend of a friend of mine online. For the past week I have been praying for this beautiful family, whose daughter was suffering with constant seizures that the medical team was unable to stop. This poor sweet child went through a horendous ordeal. In the end the gracious Lord decided to take her home to Him. Now this sweet Angel sits beside the Throne of God, while her parents mourn her passing.
I am terribly saddened by this news of this beautiful little girl. My own precious daughters suffer from Epilepsy, a seizure disorder. At 3 and 4 months of age, respectively, I watched them both begin their battle with this disorder. Although I, myself, have it, I never realized the impact or effects of it until they began their own journeys.
My oldest, thankfully, was never too bad with her seizures. They would happen, we would increase her medicine and they would be under control. Thankfully, by the time she was four, her fight with this disorder was pretty much under control without the medication. This does not mean that it’s over for her, only that we can control it unmedicated at this time.
My baby has had the worst time of battling. On the day she turned 4 months old she was placed onto medication, after being subjected to 20 different tests to see why this was happening and to make sure it was not abuse related. Two weeks later her medicine stopped controling the seizures with no warning. Laycie suffered 9 grand mal seizures and multiple petit mal seizures at 4 1/2 months old exactly in a 13 hour period. It was the worst and the scariest day of my life, thus far. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is sit back and watch my babies suffer with this disorder, not knowing if it will stop, not knowing if the medicine will work, not knowing if like the beloved angel mentioned above God will call them to Heaven.
Thankfully for us, God has seen fit to allow my daughters to continue upon their journey in life. They have not yet met His purpose or fulfilled his Glory. I am thankful, beyond measure, that He has blessed me with these three beautiful children and that He allows them to live each day. I pray every day that this disorder will end with my daughters, that they will not have to watch their own children suffer through it and know the hardships and fear of watching their children suffer with this, as I have watched them, my mother has watched me, my grandmother watched her and my great-grandmother watched my grandfather. I pray this is the generation that it stops with, but if it doesn’t we will deal with it as it comes. We are blessed that it is not something worse than this that affects our life and we are THANKFUL every day to have another day to love them, to hear their sweet voice and see their beautiful smiles, to fill our hearts with love and joy, just as God intends.
Please keep the family of the sweet girl who passed away this week in your prayers. I weep for her mother and pray she can find Peace and Glory in the knowledge that her sweet daughter is now safe in the arms of our Father, never to have to suffer with this disorder again.
There are days like today when I wake up to find my babies are all awake and waiting for me to guide them. There are days like today when I find my sweetest two year old shaky and stumbling, in need of her medicine to fight off the seizures that are just on the edge of her mind. There are days like today when I’m the only adult home, the only one dealing with all that goes on in our life. These are the days that make up my life, the days that encourage me, scare me, show me how strong I am, all at the same time and in the same moments.
When you have a normal child who doesn’t suffer from anything life-threatening, you can take things for granted and look at the world completely differently. It’s a blessing that is easily overlooked. I know because I did it once, when it was just me and my sweet boy. There are days when I long for it to be just me and him again because it was definitely so much easier back then. I could lay in the bed with him and snuggle. I didn’t have three kids to worry about, only him. We could read without interuption and play games, just he and I. Truth is, I barely remember those days because they went by so fast and they were quickly replaced by days of frantic what-if’s and girls needing to be held because they were unsteady. My son is my strength, my inspiration, the one I can count on to be just fine on the days the girls aren’t. This disorder (Epilepsy) has cheated him of much of his Mom-time and his childhood. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still been able to be a kid but there are days when he’s got to be a strong boy and help me through. I know I’d seriously be lost without his helping hands and his kind heart. I used to wonder why this boy came first into my life and now I understand that God’s plan all along was to give me a strong little man to help me through our tough times. And he surely has, every day. He’s sweet hugs get me through it all.
The days when the girls awake, weak and in need of a medicine dose or already ready to go back to sleep (because sleep is a HUGE factor in keeping this disorder managed) are some of our hardest. I never know when I climb out of bed that day if it’s going to be a “normal” morning with no health issues, or a day of loving, holding and praying for the seizures to stay at bay. Many people wonder why I chose to homeschool and a huge factor was days like this. Days that the public school would not understand or be willing to put up with. Days when we just can’t get up and go catch a bus because holding a sister is so much more important or even hugging a little boy to make up for his burdened, yet helpful, kind and strong heart.
Truth is, no matter how normal my girls look, they aren’t. Some people see me as over-protective and fail to realize that I have to be. I have to know where these girls are at every second of the day. I have to know either myself or my son is nearby to make sure they have not slipped into an unexpected seizure unnoticed and alone. Being over-protective and aware is the only defense I have against this disorder. And I am more than aware of my girls signs of oncoming seizures (which are not always dependable, nor do they always show before one comes on).
I am so THANKFUL that my Emmalee, my oldest daughter, no longer requires medication to fight her disorder but that doesn’t mean our fight has ended. The signs are still there, on days when we’ve been out late or have done way too much with no break in activity and on days when she’s not eaten enough or rested. The signs of oncoming seizures show themselves on these days and the ones following until she is settled back into her normal way of life and her normal sleep and rest patterns. She has days where she stares off and is just not there. There are days when her head aches so much from her brain fighting this disorder that she can barely take it (I have them too). It’s a lot for a sweet 7 year old to handle but she does it every day. She is such a bright little girl and so amazingly strong for her age.
Right now the hardest part is watching my littlest angel suffer through this disorder. She has no knowledge of what’s happening to her or why. She takes her medicine cocktails like a pro at only 2 years old. She “knows” without them she feels strange and unsteady and she “knows” this leads to bigger things. Her last visit to her neuro she blocked her ears because she didn’t want them looking inside them. She remembered the doctor was one of the ones who did that at her hospital stay in August. She’s such a smart baby to have to go through so much. She knows she needs her nap once a day to keep herself feeling well. She only argues when the medicine she takes hypes her up and makes her feel strange. On those days, all she wants is her Momma to hold her morning to night.
I’ve been asked in the past why I don’t get a job out of my house and put my children in the public school like so many other parents. Well, days like today are the reason why. I could never live with myself if I put my children into a school or daycare and something happened while they were there, especially when I know they have this disorder. I know it’s more important for them to have time with Mommy, for them to be in their own home so that when they need me I’m close by and when they need a break they have their familiar things surrounding them and their beds to go climb into until the unexpected has returned to normal again. For me, this is much more important than all the money I could have made.
Right now my sweet girl is napping, after her very stumbly morning. When she awakes, she should be as close to normal as it gets for us. She’s had her medicine for her Epilepsy, she’s had breakfast and then her nap medicine to help her sleep. And I’m waiting, for her to wake up, for this disorder to let go of our every day lives (though I know it’s not likely to happen) and for a non-stumbling morning tomorrow. I’m thankful that God blessed us with this disorder because I know it’s something we can handle and it could have been so much worse but I’ll never stop praying for it to just disappear and for my family to be able to have a life that it doesn’t control. For now though, we will continue to be thankful for days like this.
These thoughts have been weighing on my mind for quite some time now.
I have two daughters. Two beautiful little girls. Both blonde. Both with the most gorgeous smiles. The oldest has brown eyes, the youngest blue. Their personalities are a lot alike and yet oh so different. They love to sing… they love to play… they love to dance.
To other’s eyes they appear “normal”, and rightfully so. They are “normal” for the most part. They live what appears to be normal lives, they have normal laughs, they like the same things that every “normal” child likes. But they are far from “normal”. You see, both my precious daughters have been blessed with a disorder called Epilepsy.
“Blessed?”, you say. Yes, I call it blessed. There are far worse things they could have been burdened with. This is surely not the worst of things to have, but it is there none-the-less. It LOOMS over us daily. It can make the “normal” go into “chaotic” in seconds. We have no idea when this disorder will choose to strike. But still I say, it could be worse. This we can live with, this we can deal with.
Epilepsy is a disorder, not a disease. It can not be contracted, though it can be, as ours is, inherited. This disorder was passed to my little girls by me, passed to me by my mother and to her by her father. Someday it will possibly be passed onto my daughter’s own children, though I daily pray not. But if it is, we can deal with it, we can live with it.
How do we deal with this disorder? By keeping our environment controlled and staying on a routine. It’s important that both my girls get plenty of rest, that they eat a healthy meal three times daily and drink enough fluids. That they attempt to live a “normal” life. Pushing them beyond their limits is a no-no in our lives. Where your child may become whiny and unruly, mine can do the same, plus end up seizing. Keeping them calm, showing them love and “controlling” their life keeps their lives as “normal” as can be.
I have made them aware that they are “normal” yet they are “not normal” children. They know they have a disorder. They know to rest when they feel tired. To be quiet when someone is sleeping. Not to keep on going when their mind feels exhausted. They are aware of being careful not to fall, and especially not hitting their sweet heads. The things “normal” parents take for granted, I have to be sure my children are careful doing. My girls are ok with these things. They know this is the life God has chosen for them to lead.
I am proud of my daughters. Proud of the things they are overcoming daily. My oldest has been off her seizure medication for almost two years now. Her Epilepsy is controlled through routine and a safe enviroment, as well as plenty of rest. My youngest hasn’t had a seizure in months, though there is still plenty of seizure activity and her medication is still necessary to help her lead a “normal” life. Both of them are developmentally on track. Both of them are growing into the most beautiful little girls. Both of them are blessings in our families lives.
So you see, this is why I say Epilepsy, to us, is a blessing. It has helped us to look at the “un-normal”, to accept the burdens God gives. It has provided for us a life that without Epilepsy, would be completely “normal”. It could be so much worse! But this disorder we can deal with, we can LIVE with it. And we do, everyday.
