Howdy,

I was just approved to join the group and thought I'd introduce myself.

I don't have epilepsy, but my 36 year old step-son does. He's had
uncontrolled seizures since he was 12 years old! He was out of our lives
for awhile and came back into our lives about 5 years ago. We got him
hooked up with Dr. Holmes at Harborview Regional Epilepsy Center - a great
move for him. Dr. Holmes and his staff have been there for us whenever we
have questions. Lars had a VNS implanted a few years ago, which has helped
somewhat. He's on three different seizure meds - Keppra, Zonegran and
Lyrica, pretty much maxed out on dosage. At least he doesn't have full
blown grand mals any more - they're more like aborted grand mals. He has a
lot of falls usually right on top of his head. Of course, he won't wear a
helmet unless he has to for "work". He does volunteer work at the YMCA but
is having a hard time finding a "real" job. We're working with DVR and
another agency to try to find an employer that's comfortable with seizures
because we *know* he'll have seizures while he's working.

The hard part is that he has *no* warning!

He does life in an adult family home in Bellevue with a bunch of guys.
Probably not the most stress-free and quiet living situation, but the guys
for the most part are a great group and the caregivers are utterly
fantastic!

We live just east of Redmond, WA.

I'll probably have a few questions later on....


Couple of comments on older posts:

1. Lars and I both have MedicAlert bracelets. His is the basic stainless
steel. We didn't want to get him a fancier one because we were concerned
about it getting stolen if he has a seizure and the wrong person shows up.
I have one of the fancier ones and I'm always getting comments on it. I
really like the MedicAlert service. He had a seizure at a restaurant one
day and the MedicAlert people called us to let us know he was on his way to
the hospital. Also, with my health issues, knowing that the info is on file
and can be looked up by emergency personnel in the event I'm not able to
communicate is comforting.

2. Spam: a definite problem! I moderate several Yahoo! groups - I haven't
approved membership but do approve posts on one of them and spam is deleted
and the person is immediately banned. Of course, that doesn't mean they
can't rejoin with a different name! One of the other groups does have
temporary moderation on new members. If spam does hit a group, it's easy
enough to remove from the archives!

3. Epilepsy Foundation meetings - we haven't been and I was just looking at
a list of upcoming topics. They certainly sound like they're worth going
to!

Sherry