As time allows, I’d like to share some of our own journey with epilepsy and seizure disorder. This is part 1, please fill out the email newsletter to receive notification of new posts.
I remember the first time I saw a seizure. I was 20 and pregnant with my first baby. I worked at Desert Haven, a local non-profit who employs adults with disabilities. I was talking with a group of people when suddenly a grown man lurched from his wheelchair to the floor in front of me and his body was violently convulsing from a seizure.
I was trained for this moment. My brain immediately went into caregiver mode and I, along with a few others, noted the time, moved away items he could be hurt on. I placed myself between him and a desk so he wouldn’t hit his head on it, and someone directed others out of the area to provide privacy for him. A few long moments later it was over and he was in a deep sleep. I placed a rolled up sweatshirt under his head, someone else brought a blanket and we worked around him to clean the floor of vomit.
I left his care to the other staff, as we knew he’d likely sleep for a good hour or so. Someone called his family. I walked back to my office and sat down with my boss and wept. All the training in the world could not have prepared me for the emotional wrecking ball witnessing a seizure can be!
Even this could never have prepared me for the undesired relationship with seizures I’d be forced into when my fourth child was born.
{{To be continued}}
