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This past week on March 26th, my family all dressed in purple for the
day. By doing this we were showing our support for Epilepsy awareness. But what I noticed, was that although there were numerous tweets, facebook posts, and signs posted stating that it was Epilepsy awareness day, numerous amounts of people were not wearing purple. I think I counted 3 people, including myself wearing purple, and who even knows if they were wearing purple to show their support.
This caught my attention, and I decided I would write a blog about it. Maybe this will help more people recognize not just Epilepsy, but other diseases that get overshadowed by diseases such as cancer and MS. Now I'm definately not
trying to degrade those diseases and say that Epilepsy is more important, because it isn't in any way at all. But I feel as though some illnesses are being "shoved aside", and this shouldn't be the case at all. In my opinion, every disease or mental illness that anyone has to endure, is equally as important as another.
So to begin, what is Epilepsy? "A neurological disorder marked by sudden recurrent episodes of sensory disturbance, loss of consciousness, or convulsions, associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain." My brother has been an Epileptic since he was 3 years old, and that is why this disease and raising awareness is so important to me. Basically, he experiences what are known as petit mal seizures, where he loses conciousness and his body convulses for a very short amount of time, and he also experiences grand mal seizures, where he loses conciousness for several minutes. If someone has a seizure for over 5 minutes, it is considered life threatening. My brother had his first grand mal seizure when he was 3 years old. And he has had seizures for over 5 minutes. This is something that he will have to endure for the rest of his life, and something that may prevent him from being able to get his drivers license, and prevents him from doing simple things like swimming alone.
When I was younger, I would host garage/bakesales to raise money for the Epilepsy Foundation. But
sadly, this is the only real event that I have heard of to raise awareness towards Epilepsy.
So I'm hoping with this small introduction to Epilepsy, it may spark some thoughts in reader's minds. I'm hoping it will encourage people to look further into diseases that aren't as publically displayed as others. Because there are other illnesses out there that do need to be dealt with.