Hello everyone:
Here I am again, to tell you about my day to day with this disease, in a casual and familiar way.
People who have a chronic disease (or two, like me), know that our life will never be the same as that of others. But we can make our attitude towards life the same as that of the rest: with the same impetus, the same desire to live and do things, with great personal effort and a lot of love for others. They are all things that we can do and that will give us a lot of joy to live.
“We can make our attitude towards life the same as that of the rest”
If I had thrown the towel at the time I was diagnosed with epilepsy, at such a difficult age as 17, my life would have been much sadder and more useless. Acceptance and struggle are essential to face obstacles. From minute one, they made me responsible for my medication (at 17 I was too old to do it); They told me what I could and couldn’t do and I just did it. It was hard, of course it was hard: going out with friends and not trying alcohol, not being able to stay up late if you had to get up early the next day…. All those things that youth do for fun. But my parents did not control me or I did not notice that they did: they trusted me. And that trust made me more responsible. Until those new customs became routine and everyone knew what my limits were.
The other day in a casual conversation with my son, we remembered that I, for many years, was getting up at 06:30 in the morning, because my time for work was 07:30, which required me to go to bed at 10:30 at night. Well, I did, and I don’t even remember feeling unhappy about it or anything: other people had to make a one hour trip to work and I arrived in 10 minutes. That everyone has problems, problems, things to adapt to and it is much smarter to do so because it is what will allow you to be happy.
In these times when the culture of effort does not take place, it’s more necessary than ever that we fight for it. Anyone to whom a problem appears, be it medical, work, etc., if they are used to the effort, they will have more weapons to face whatever problem it is.
That is why my message to all parents of children with epilepsy: do not overprotect them; make them responsible (according to their age, of course), trust them, do not transmit your fears to them and speak everything clearly. The communication is very important. And tell it in your schools, your teachers, explaining what to do if a seizure arises. Sometimes ignorance is the basis of bullying because ignorance generates fear.
