Doing Life in Lavender

This is my pill pot! This contains all the medication I take. All the anti-seizure medication, all the medication to counteract the side effects of the anti-seizure medication and more gets carried around with me everywhere I go (unless I've forgotten!) If I have forgotten it, I tend to find myself in a bit of a pickle! (That's understating it slightly!) I'm trying to get better at remembering it though, as I've gotten myself in some tight spots where I'm patching together a dose from what I keep in my mum's bag, and my family's car.  And when I can't do that, I have to accept that I'm going to be twitchy until I get home. This is such a small thing and yet so much of my health depends on my ability to keep it organised and on my person.

This isn’t applicable to everyone, but one of my triggers is low blood sugar. When my blood sugar drops too low, I can start seizing. This is why I carry around snacks in my bag! It does come in handy though. Some of the medication I take, for dealing with the side-effects of anti-seizure meds, has to be taken after food, so it’s useful to have something to be able to eat so that I can ensure that I’m prepared to take my meds. Having a snack isn’t quite as important as making sure I have a drink, but it’s still useful to be able to have it in case I need it!

This is my medical ID. I have it in 2 forms that never leave my person. I never take off this necklace. Well not unless my baby niece, who likes eating it, is around! The reason I have a necklace is specifically so that I don’t have to take it off as my work in a hospital means I cannot wear a bracelet. I also have a card (along with the necklace which are from Medicalert ) which has a bit more detail on it. However, both include information on my epilepsy and allergies as well as a way to access my full medical history.  These are really helpful as they mean, if anything happens to me and I end up in an accident, it’s much easier to access my medical history, this includes what meds I take and what I’m allergic to. These things give me more confidence to go out independently. Trying to get me to wear my medical ID when I was little was a palaver, I hated it! Thankfully, I’ve started to understand what it does for me, so I feel much better about wearing it and appreciate the sa...

Today marks the start of National Epilepsy Week and if you’ve been around this blog for a while you know I never miss an opportunity to use an epilepsy related holiday/event to talk about something important to me! I’ve recently realised how much seemingly random stuff in my bag is there because I have seizures. So this week I decided to go through some of the random stuff in my bag that I would not be carrying around if it weren’t for my epilepsy and hopefully explain how something that seems very simple can actually be quite important. The reason I carry around so much is because I want to be prepared for any eventuality regarding my seizures. And that covers quite a lot of ground, resulting in carrying around quite a lot of stuff! You may be aware of some mums and their superpower of having everything needed for any possible situation. At least mine always used to be on the ready with her (only slightly cooler looking) Mary Poppins bag! This week I’m talking about some of the stuf...

  Hello again and Happy Purple Day! Today is Epilepsy Awareness Day around the world (in Canada it’s even a national Holiday!) I always love Purple Day as it is a time to celebrate the people living with epilepsy daily and raise awareness for the condition that I’ve been living with for so long.   I’ve never known life without epilepsy but it’s so unknown, and yet it’s the fourth most common neurological condition, affecting between 50-60 million people globally. Because not many people know much about it, and it affects so many people, I like to use Purple Day to try and make some noise!   The past year has been a bit of a bonkers one for me, not because my epilepsy has changed all that much, but because of the way I have seen how much my epilepsy impacts everyday life. I started this blog this year focussing on my experiences living with epilepsy and it has forced me to sit down and reflect on things I’ve never really thought about before. Writing about my journey has...

Hello again! It's nice to be back! Today I thought I'd briefly talk about triggers. I realised I'd ended up talking about my own triggers quite a lot back in my Photo Challenge in November, so I thought I'd expand a bit today.  Probably the most important thing I can say about triggers is that every person has different triggers for their seizures and that sometimes there can be seemingly no trigger. Every person's epilepsy is different and is therefore impacted differently by biological or external factors. Some people might be triggered by fluctuations in blood glucose levels, some people are affected by flashing lights and others are triggered by physical exertion. The list of potential seizure triggers goes on and on. A lot of the time the seizure trigger is unknown but one of the most common triggers for a seizure is stress. Even things that can seem so innocent to one person can be a trigger to another and vice versa.  My own list of triggers goes a little lik...

Hello again! Once more I find myself in the position where life has taken over and I'm behind on my writing schedule! I hope to have something up soon though I won't promise next week as I want to take a fair amount of time planning and editing this next one.  Hopefully see you all soon!  Lots of love  💜💜💜

        Hello again! As the year ended and a new one began it seemed like a good time to reflect on what the last year has been like and what I want to accomplish in the one ahead.  2020 has been a crazy, ridiculous, stressful year. It has been a year of extremes for me. I've found incredible joys and yet I've also had to learn how to cope and manage with new difficulties.  Throughout 2020 I haven't had any improvements in my seizures although I am blessed that for the most part I am still able to do my job and am not limited in lots of the ways some people with epilepsy find a struggle. I had a major dip as a new medication made things worse than better, although my next appointment my consultant took me straight back off it again. During this period though, I had a seizure in front of a patient and while it was severe myoclonic rather than a full convulsive seizure, that was quite a difficult experience to come to grips with. I felt weak, or like I was ma...

Hello again! Today I wanted to talk about the importance of community in epilepsy. I've mentioned before that I grew up being the only person I knew with epilepsy. That was a really isolating experience for me growing up but I don't think I realised how isolating it was until I found others going through the same as me.  I have recently been welcomed into an epilepsy group where we can just share experiences, chat, have fun, and for an hour a week I can feel "normal". At least I don't feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. And if I do, it's because I'm me and I'm a little bit bonkers and not because of my epilepsy. I've loved discovering this little community and they've made me feel so welcome. I thought I didn't need to know other people with epilepsy. I didn't need to be part of a community because I had this epilepsy thing down, I'd been doing it for so long. And then I met other people, and I spoke to other people, and it f...

 Hello everyone! Welcome back after my November photo blogs. Today still isn't going to my usual style but I was struck by something that happened to me the other day and I wanted to talk about it. We live in a society where we need to see something to believe it. Invisible illnesses are real and impact so many on a daily basis and yet we as a society have very little sense of how impactful they can be until we experience it ourselves.  I was on a bus the other day, twitching making it impossible for me to safely get upstairs but there were no seats downstairs. The disabled seats which in this instance I feel like are there to help me were all filled and I didn't have my medical ID on me. Because I had no medical ID on me I, an otherwise fit and healthy-looking 22-year-old didn't feel like it was fair to ask any of these potentially able-bodied people to move. They were all at least 40 years older than me! But that left me downstairs by the driver unable to socially distanc...