Epilepsy on Our Terms

This enlightening book presents the firsthand personal accounts of children with seizure disorders and their parents. In their own words, they vividly describe the experiences of handling the crisis of the first seizure, adjusting to the diagnosis of epilepsy, coping with seizures, managing medications and side effects, and dealing with health care providers, teachers, schoolmates, siblings, and friends. The accounts reveal the terror, uncertainty and frustration felt by children and parents after a diagnosis of epilepsy, and document the ongoing trials, tribulations and triumphs of coping with seizures, medication schedules and side effects, health care providers and hospitals, schoolmates, siblings, relatives and friends. These accounts provide realistic insights into the myriad issues encountered in living with childhood epilepsy. The book also includes a straightforward medical discussion of childhood seizures, written in layperson's terms; a glossary of medical terms; and a guide for schoolteachers and parents written by the Executive Director of the Epilepsy Association of Massachusetts. Appendices provide a directory of Epilepsy Foundation of America affiliates; a list of recommended books, publications and videotapes, and information about the Epilepsy Foundation of America's Winning Kids program. ABOUT THE SERIES: With the Brainstorms series, one of the world's leading authorities on epilepsy, Dr Steven C. Schachter, has gathered together the personal testimonies of patients, family members, and caregivers to create a poignant and gripping series of books on this misunderstood and often devastating disorder.