Background: I was teaching eighth grade science. I was fragile. I was constantly in pain due to an arthritic knee. My blood-work had many abnormalities. I never felt well. I had trouble sleeping. I cried a lot. I called the bouts of tears “emotional sneezes.”
I met with my doctor to discuss disability. We figured the root cause of my health issues was all the pain from my knee. I had a knee replacement in January.
Rose had a seizure at school while I was home recuperating from surgery. She tore up her face on the asphalt while planting Knock-out roses during her horticulture class.
I worked very hard for six weeks to get fit to return to the classroom. I went back to teaching just as Rose went home-bound due to an increase in seizure activity.
This is the story of the turning point for ME. When I decided that I was not going to do anything else but try to get the right treatment for Rose.
As you read this, remember that we are fine now. This is part of our past.
I was sitting on the couch watching television. Rose got up from the chair to change the channel. There was a crash. She fell toward the right of the TV cabinet. Her head hit the heat shield behind the woodstove which is just inches behind the sharp corner. There was blood all over the rock hearth.
I always rush to her to help,but I couldn’t move. Her dad appeared. I was frozen on the couch. I was no longer in charge of myself.
All I could do was scream. It came from somewhere deep inside of me. It was not human, it was primal, from the past, from somewhere far away. It was like something shattered and an explosion of sound came through a hole from somewhere else. I couldn’t stop screaming.
I do not know what happened next. I was blind. Everything was whooshing out from me so that nothing could enter. It was like I was emptying my body of all its emotion and energy. I was exploding and emptying. The scream was so strong, I could not stop it.
My soul was screaming.
The heat-shield was bent, but I was broken.
After this event, I decided I was done with everything else in this world. I was doing nothing else. This had to stop. She was four inches from a fatal fall. Nothing else mattered. I quit my job as soon as we had an Epilepsy Monitoring Unit appointment. I was SEIZURE MAMA full-time. I read everything from everywhere about seizures and epilepsy drugs.
It paid off.
To be continued…
SEIZURE MAMA
Seizure Mama and Rose 