A Short Bit on Epilepsy

The past few weeks I have been blessed
To learn about the lives distressed
Of epileptics. Away they're swept
By common folks who can't accept.

The past few weeks I've been dedicating a day a week in a second lab whose research focuses on epilepsy -- finding out new treatments, trying to learn more about the disease, and that sort of thing. My role in this lab is to work on a particular document that is supposed to address the needs of epileptics; funny enough, it's sort of a recommendation report (not that my favourite ESC TA was able to teach me THAT kind of writing). Anyways, I've learned some really interesting things about epilepsy and it's really got me going.

I was one of those people (and I think I still am) who is sort of scared by epilepsy. I mean, for those of us who don't know anything about the disease, it seems scary, we have this picture of convulsing people in our heads. But I just wanted to clear up this issue because the number one thing I've learned so far is that one of the biggest barriers that epileptics face is not their seizures (many epileptics have controlled seizures though pharmaceutical means) but -- I would argue, according to a recent survey -- the fact that the public doesn't know enough about epilepsy and discriminates against them. Many companies won't hire an epileptic because they seem like a liability. But the truth is that a lot of epileptics can sense when a seizure may occur.

Did you know that teachers are not required to have training for kids with allergies or epilepsy? The problem is that epileptic kids may have seizures 10 or 15 (or more) times a day. The seizure consists of the child blanking out for a couple of seconds, and he'll have no memory of the seizure. The teacher won't be able to tell that he's had a seizure. But the problem is that the child can't follow the lesson being taught, and many times, kids like these are labelled as ADD kids, or "slow," because teachers don't understand that this is a side effect of the disease that can't be helped.

The bottom line is that epileptics are not freaks. If you get the chance, learn more about the disease. Talk to me about it any time...I'm learning more about it every day.