Dawn's story
“It was the first thing my husband’s mum said when he was diagnosed. ‘Don’t tell anyone.’ There’s still a stigma around epilepsy. About how people might react to you – because they don’t understand it, or they’re a bit scared. There’s a lot of ignorance too. And not talking about it doesn’t help. It should be up there with heart disease and cancer as something people know about.
Once, Willie lost consciousness when we were out. We were coming out of the building society and he just hit the street. I had the fright of my life. People just looked and then walked on.
These were people we knew. ‘Look at that’ and then they walked on. No one stopped. No one asked if I needed help. You could read their minds – that he was drunk, or on drugs… Turning their noses up. It was terrible.
When our daughter was finally diagnosed with epilepsy, after 14 years of doctors and specialists, Willie said the same thing to her that his mum had said to him: ‘Don’t tell anyone’.”
Kelsey was finally referred to the Scottish Epilepsy Centre. She stayed there for several weeks of continuing monitoring and assessment.
Once we’d accurately diagnosed her epilepsy, we carefully trialled different medications until we found the treatment that worked.
A single pill, just once a day, has finally given Kelsey the ‘normal life’ she’s longed for. Before she came to Quarriers, her seizures had been getting worse – alarmingly so. Since she left, she’s not had one.
“What a difference. I watched her walk down the road the other night, off to a concert, and I remember thinking ‘the worst she can do is get lost’. It’s just amazing.
When she called to say she was on her way home, I said ‘So soon? It’s so early’ and she said ‘Mum, it’s 11 o’clock’. I couldn’t believe it, the time had gone by so fast. Whereas before, every minute she was away from the house seemed like an hour.”
