As I reflect back over the past two years, I remember many times when I felt like I was Moses, alone on a mountain, growing weary of the fight. There were moments though, when people came beside me and helped me bear the load. In small acts of kindness, friends and strangers came along and held our arms up.
A year without seizures is a huge milestone in the world of epilepsy. Ironically, it is also terrifying. If Alyssa maintains her streak over the summer, then in the fall we will start to slowly wean her off of at least one of her medications. I have a love / hate relationship with those medications. On the one hand she takes large doses of mind altering drugs every day with a whole slew of side effects and an undetermined impact on her development. On the other hand, those drugs are keeping her alive.
Alyssa was a foster child who legally belonged to the state and people of Texas. When Alyssa was abused, the state stepped in to protect her because as a society, we believe that it is our obligation to care for our children when they need us. When we refuse treatment that could give an innocent little girl a chance at normalcy and life without seizures or side effects, we are denying our responsibility to her, and other sick children in our country.
This summer I took a brutal cross cultural course as part of my master’s program. The class required 15 – 20 hours of reading per week along with several projects. It was exhausting. However, there was one project that I really got into: the cultural self-portrait. We had to create some type of art project that captured who we…
Children rarely grow up to be exactly what their parents pictured. Many parents struggle to accept that their kids have chosen different paths. The difference is that parents of special needs children grieve because the different paths were not chosen by our children; they were forced on them.
There is a misconception in the outside world (ie: everyone not living with a person who has epilepsy) that as long as a person is not actively having seizures, all is well. That may be the case for some families üydealing with less severe forms of the disorder but epilepsy is a constant presence for many people, even when…
We never dreamed that epilepsy would invade our world like this but God new it was coming. He was prepared for it even if we weren’t.
