Beth | October 29, 2014
This is the last post of a month-long series that my teen daughter and I are writing about her life and learning to live with epilepsy. To start at the beginning, click here.
During this past month, we've woven the narrative of Beth's epilepsy story in with resources, other stories, and educational posts. That wasn't the plan in the beginning. But sometimes that's how life goes with epilepsy.
Beth wanted to write a lot more of this herself but in the middle of the month, she started having partial seizures at school again and then a grand mal at home one night. And so we jumped into the middle of her story to post about how epilepsy was affecting her at that very moment. Because that's how our daily life is. Seizures interrupt your plans and you have to adapt.
After that happened, she was simply too exhausted to write. She had make-up work at school, plus the whole-body exhaustion after days of seizures, and her first orchestra concert of the year to get ready for. Which, by the way, she sat first chair in! She kept it a secret for an entire week so that she could surprise us. It's an enormous accomplishment when there are 18 other cellists in her orchestra and an unbelievably proud moment for her, especially when you take into account all of the seizures she dealt with this month.
When she realized that she wasn't going to be able to write any more posts, she left it up to me. I even commented that we weren't under any obligation to keep going and could stop whenever we wanted. And her response was spot on, "What? It's my life we're talking about. We don't give up."
She teaches me something new about courage every single day. I am honored to be her mother and if we've helped even just one person understand epilepsy a little bit better, we've achieved our goal.
Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting. And a very special thanks to Kris and Mary for joining us!
*If you'd like to read all of our 31 Days posts about living with epilepsy, click on the button on the sidebar or start here. And if you're wondering what the heck is going on and who Beth is, click here. 🙂
If you'd like to read her story without the other posts or send it to someone to read, you can follow these links:
Pre-diagnosis
Beth's First Seizure
Beth's Initial Diagnosis
Choosing to Medicate my child
Dealing with uncertainty
Epilepsy gets real
The first few years of epilepsy
A milestone and heartbreak
The terrible, horrible, no-good year
Related links:
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