Watch Your Language

(First off, a disclaimer: what follows is by no means intended to make you feel bad if you haven’t been using "ideal" language to describe people with epilepsy, unless you’ve been purposefully going around disparagingly shrieking “epileptic”/teasing kids with epilepsy on the playground/wreaking general havoc on the epilepsy universe, in which case I have many, … Continue reading Watch Your Language →

Back to the ER

We were at the ER until 3 a.m. on Tuesday night. I woke up the next morning with a vague feeling that something had happened, a suspicion confirmed by the bling (hospital bracelet) still adorning my wrist. Following a chat with my husband, the filler-in-of-seizure-gaps, I still have only spotty first-hand recollections of our latest … Continue reading Back to the ER →

Get Your Fingers Outta My Mouth

If that sounded dirty, it was, but only because the culprit (i.e., the well-meaning but misinformed stranger trying to help) almost definitely hadn't washed his/her fingers before using them to try to stop me from dying from the oldest of epilepsy perils: tongue-swallowing. And on the off chance you're wondering why I'm upset that this … Continue reading Get Your Fingers Outta My Mouth →

Breakthrough

Remember how Topamax was working miracles, eliminating my convulsive seizures and transforming my days into a series of peaceful, anxiety-free, productive moments? (Slight—okay, major—hyperbole.) Well, the tonic-clonic seizure that I had last night reminded me that nothing lasts forever. Not true, actually: even the eponymous and moderately annoying Maroon 5 song is still around. But … Continue reading Breakthrough →

Cost of Control

I complain so much about the side effects of the anticonvulsants that I’ve been prescribed—the infamous Topamax, not Lamictal, which I also take but tolerate very well—that I forget how lucky I am to be able to afford these meds in the first place. When I go to the pharmacy to pick up a monthly … Continue reading Cost of Control →

Cutting It Out

I’m currently on the waiting list to go back to the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at a hospital in my city so that my epileptologist can capture more data about my seizure activity. The prospect of a week or two of hospital time isn’t exactly thrilling, but at least there’s potential for productive information gathering and … Continue reading Cutting It Out →

Summertime

Summertime living traditionally hasn’t been especially easy for me. I attribute this to the fact that there isn’t one of my favourite things—school—to give me structure and keep me intellectually engaged. In contrast with most of my peers in undergrad, who for whatever reason looked forward to the last day of classes (what??), I dreaded … Continue reading Summertime →

OCD Redux

Since writing about OCD a few weeks ago, I’ve had time to think more about some issues that I maybe should have addressed in that original post and others that have come up since then. Cue oversharing. Without getting into too many details, many of my OCD behaviours involve numbers; I have, for example, three–four … Continue reading OCD Redux →

Summiting

I’m very, very happy to have been chosen to attend the 2014 Young Adult Epilepsy Summit from July 25 to 27 in Washington, DC. According to its website, during the summit, organized by the Epilepsy Foundation and the North American Region International Bureau for Epilepsy (IBE), “young adults will gather to network, share epilepsy experiences … Continue reading Summiting →

OCD

Pretty much no one I know in real life was surprised when I was officially diagnosed with OCD a few weeks ago. My mom’s reaction was simply “duh.” The most common among close friends was some variation of wanting to know if this is actually news. Indeed, I was more taken aback by my psychiatrist’s … Continue reading OCD →