Doing Life in Lavender

        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'm talking about something really personal. Unfortunately, it's something that I think doesn't have enough recognition and so I think it's really important to raise awareness of it: that’s epilepsy and anxiety. Epilepsy can have a big impact on mental health, whether it’s your epilepsy or you have a family member with epilepsy. As I grew up and learned to deal with my epilepsy, the impact on my mental wellbeing was something that I never even really considered. At least not until suddenly, out of nowhere, it's something that I was dealing with. My epilepsy has always been on a general upwards trajectory even if there have been dips here and there. Adjustments to my medications have meant that overall, my epilepsy has gradually improved over the years. However, it was only after the worst dip my epilepsy has ever had that anxiety came crashing into my life. My seizures went from clusters every six to seven weeks to every day, maybe every oth...

Hi there! Me again. I’m glad you came back!   I hope you enjoyed my introductory blog! You’re discovering another thing about me. My tendency to massively overuse exclamation marks when using the written word to express myself… Oops! Joking aside though, in this blog I wanted to talk about loneliness and isolation. This is something we are all experiencing in a way we never have before because of the Covid-19 virus. It’s also something that we all experience to some degree or other, even before we used the words ‘Corona’ or ‘Lockdown’ so frequently. The feeling of being alone, that no one knows what it’s like to walk in your shoes; it’s a feeling we all know but for people with chronic medical conditions, their condition can be a reason for them feeling it more acutely. We aren’t the only ones, but chronic conditions, such as epilepsy can be the cause of such feelings and I know that personally my epilepsy has been the biggest cause of my feelings of loneliness and isolation th...