​Have you witnessed someone having a seizure? If yes, then I assume it has been in-person. You see signs such as they have fallen or are unresponsive. During such an incident you're there to help guide them through the seizure, or yell out to someone, "call 911." 
 
Times have changed due to the virus. Today, we are doing more on-line meetings and screen apps on phones and computers. Here is the new scenario. You are on the phone or in ZOOM meeting and notice something is not right with the person on the other end. 
The person may have dropped their device or gone off the screen. 

Did you notice something wrong with that person prior? 

⚡️Did the person not respond to a prompt? 
⚡️Did the person quietly drift off-screen slowly? 
⚡️Did the person start to jerk around? 

These sometimes-subtle behaviors could be signs of a seizure. ​

What to do:
If a person is with you, have them contact help by calling someone that may be in the room or building with the seizure victim. "I was just on screen with Sam, and something is not right, please check right away." Then stay on the line with the seizure victim until help arrives. 

What if you do not have anyone's contact information to alert their caregiver or co-worker? 
 
⏰ Start timing the seizure. Note how many minutes have passed since they were not responsive.
 
📞📱Stay on the phone. Generally speaking, most people with seizure disorders do come out of them on their own. 
 
However, if it's lasting, more than three minutes, no one is in the victim’s vicinity and you do not see the person recover call 911 and give them all the information you know about the person that is having the seizure. They have technology that can pinpoint the location from a phone number.
 
A few tips like these are critical for someone who suffers from seizures, diabetic shock, strokes or any neurological episodes. You taking the extra precautions like these above could mean life or death. 
​
Thank you for reading.
 #seizureawarness 

Think about this when people talk about mandating masks in public schools. 
Today, I saw this neck tag on a lanyard that someone would wear if they do not wear a mask because of the disability they live with. This particular tag was signed by the ADA Americans with Disabilities -not sure if it is from the ADA, but it is sold on ETSY. Image from ETSY.
​

For some people with disabilities, mask-wearing is not an option. For a person like my teen daughter Allie with PCDH19 Epilepsy, we need to see her lips and face and not have anything obstructing her face. 


For example:
1. A mask covers up her blue lips. This is a signal she is at the start of a seizure.
2. A mask can get in the way of her gasping for air that she desperately needs.
3. A face shield could cause more restriction and danger when she is in a seizure as she violently moves around during a tonic-clonic seizure. 

These are just a few examples I think about that pertain to health and safety. 
Then the fallout. 


I fear that she will get teased and bullied from staff and students for not wearing a mask or face shield. 


I can hear the conversations now.


"Oh, my staff would never pressure Allie to wear a mask!"


But, they are human. Staff and students will have their own agenda. They will not have filters when it comes to letting everyone know about their mask protection.


These thoughts race through a mother's mind at 2 am. 

These thoughts race through a mother's mind throughout the day when she is in school.


People with disabilities have rights. And, for a good reason. Let's not forget that we are not perfect. Let's not forget that we are not all the same. And, most importantly, let's not forget to be kind.

Image source: Illustration created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Break it down in a simple way. Then again and again. 

     "There is a terrible flu going around. We need to stay safe at home and away from other people during this time, but I am sorry we don't know how long."

A hard concept to wrap our brains around. This is our new "normal" for the next six weeks at a minimum. But what does that look like for someone with extra needs? For my daughter, Allie, who lives with #PCDH19epilepsy and autism, explaining social distancing to her is going to be repetitive and exhausting. For me to tell her we cannot be around anyone confuses her, to say the least. 

I can explain verbally over and over. But, what will happen is number one; it won't stick. And number two, I will get frustrated for repetitive explanations over the next six weeks.

Thanks to Social Stories™ that I discovered years ago, this tool will help immensely. Social Stories™ was created by Carol Gray in 1991. They are short descriptions of a particular situation, event, or activity, which include specific information about what to expect in that situation and why. ​

Allie, now 16 years old, has used Social Stories™ for about ten years. Therapists have introduced these valuable stories to me and helped Allie understand in a simple explanation with pictures and short words to match. A win-win for us as parents, educators, and therapists. 

Anyone can create a Social Story™ for a loved one. It doesn't have to be complicated. This story is what we used to explain the current pandemic of 2020. This is a free resource from the Social Stories™ website. 

Going forward, in our home, in addition to Social Stories™, we set up a temporary home-school or #unschool work station in our living room, use DIY chore charts, and count down "rings." We have an extensive collection of board games to play. Most importantly, I will make sure wiggle breaks are sprinkled in. 

This situation is uncharted territory with regards to a modern-day pandemic. I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else is doing. Please share! And, good luck to us all. If I report back within a few weeks, I am sure my mental health will be challenged, but I am hoping to stay in the positive. How about you?

​It was a neighborhood holiday party. There were hundreds of kids, or so it seemed, running around and having fun. The moms and dads made nice attempts to wear holiday-themed clothing. This event was not appropriate for my day-to-day black yoga pants. Excited, I applied makeup, brushed my hair, and put on a skirt. I was ready to join. I was enjoying myself at the party, chatting with other moms. I offered to fill-up another mom's glass with more punch. I took her empty glass with my un-manicured hands and nails. These nails were past the due date of reapplying new nail polish. (I'm a nighttime DIY nail applier at home when kids are sound asleep in bed.) I never really made it a priority to upkeep any other kind of nail detail.

I knew I was caught when I grabbed the glass out of her gorgeous hand. We both looked down and found a millisecond of what my nails revealed. The women's nails were spectacular, to say the least!  They were embellished with the latest holiday nail art. Clearly, she spent time at the nail bar just for the holiday parties. Lucky lady!

I was embarrassed at that moment; however, I stayed and played with the kids for another hour. I was driving home and thinking about my nail scandal, which wasn't, let's be honest, it was all just in my head. So I decided to look at it from a different perspective: These nails showed that I completed serious work. These ugly nails had a hard week of taking care of children and all of their glorious messes. These nails are mine, and it's the best I can do today. 

 Peace out to all the marvelous women that make time to find time for the salon. I will get there someday. 

​
Are you new to a diagnosis of your child? This lesson is probably the hardest to accept because the raw emotions of your child are involved. Do yourself a favor right from the start of this special life and get used to the ever-changing and revolving doors of staff, helpers, professionals, care providers, sitters, doctors, nurses that will come into your world and then quit. Those special people in your life that you shed tears with and shared personal life events with will eventually change careers.  They may move to other positions or leave town. Be prepared as your family will feel a loss. It's the nature of the beast, and as the saying goes... life happens. 

Every person in your child's life is meaningful. Your time was invested in that provider. As a parent, it is difficult when you see your child get emotionally attached to a person. Then that trusted "friend" leaves or moves on from their position, and now you and your child will feel a sense of loss. 

The weight of responsibility now falls onto the parents to prepare their child for when care providers quit. We now have to take the time to explain the person's last day will be next Monday at 3:30.

I deliver my news to Allie after Ashely's last music lesson.
      "You will not see Ms. Ashley your music teacher again my darling. I am so sorry." I said sadley.
         "Okay mom, why? Did she move away?"

          "No, she will be working in the next city a few miles away from here with adults teaching them music. Won't that be nice for them?" I lightly explain in a way she can comprehend in a positive light.

It is harder on the parent or care provider than the child in some cases. I am one of the lucky ones where my child just moves on to the next one. But so many are not as fortunate as I. However, the sting is still present in my heart.

Please comment if you experience this. I ask you to offer advise for those of us that go through this transition. What do you do? What do you tell your kids? How do you move past?
​

It was 2nd Grade, Mr. Johnson's English class circa. 1982. We were instructed to to write a four-line poem about nature. However, there was a catch and rules to follow! The Japanese style poem, Haiku, specifically has 17 total syllables; 5,7,5. Rarely do these poems rhyme. But mine did as a default.

Forrest by Joni Morgan
​
Deep and dark fortress.
How you must long for water.
The drought must be stress.

There it is. My first poem. It had to rhyme. I mean what 2nd grader doesn't like to rhyme?

I loved poems in those early years. I had a blast rhyming for my teachers, family, and friends. I graduated into short stories. And, for the most part, fiction. When I was of age, I worked in a public library. There, I got a taste for science fiction. Fascinating! Worlds and universes were vast. Almost too much for my little fiction mind.

I crawled back into my non-fiction love. And, In high school, I was crushed to find out my favorite book, The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller, was entirely fictional. I recovered. Moving forward, I was more careful with my choices of non-fictional book choices. I invested time in them. Learning about life and what do other people do. I read books carefully. What have others done with their situations? How did they recover? What mistakes did they make? What triumphs? Books have become my personal toolbox navigating through this crazy life. 

April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day

And, April is Autism awareness month. This month if you are on social media you will see "light it up blue" or an article or an image that will bring awareness to ASD which is short for autism spectrum disorder.  It is a developmental disorder of variable severity that is characterized by difficulty in social interaction and communication and by restricted or repetitive patterns of thought and behavior.

I get it. I was like most people before my daughter got diagnosed with autism over a decade ago. I did not pay attention to anything special needs period. But then things changed after that day. My life changed. My perspective changed.

Before that, I was in my own little perfect world. Deep into insignificant issues like working full-time and planning my next beach vacation.

I had a greater purpose after ASD entered. I became more empathetic. For example, because, I as a parent was living daily with meltdowns, sensory issues, and teacher conferences informing me about how disruptive my daughter was in class. From then on I did not judge the dad or mom that was leaving their full grocery cart in the middle aisle with their child in tow having the worst temper tantrum I had ever seen.

I was more understanding of these situations. My empathy grew stronger for parents like myself that needed to get through another tough day with their child that might have something wrong with their brain.

I was that parent leaving my groceries at the store.
​
For whatever battle you're fighting, someone is fighting another battle just as hard. And, autism is ours. We love that April is autism awareness month and April 2 is autism awareness day. For us, it’s 365 days of autism awareness day. I write to you not to feel sorry for me. I write to inform. We are good. Because in our house, love is strong and no small accomplishments go unrecognized. Shout out to all that are fighting something unexpected.

For over a decade we did not know the root cause of our daughter Allie's seizure disorder. Having the why unanswered was incredibly difficult, to say the least. I felt like an erratic mother bear searching to no end on everything as to why her brain was broken. Desperately scraping surfaces for any clues. I could not rest well without knowing. Negative on both sides of family history for mental illness, chronic conditions or any seizure disorder. Baffled. I was fishing in ponds of medical guesses, and mentally I was running out of bait. 

September 2014, around midnight, Allie age 11, sleeping in her bedroom just down the hall from us. I was in my dark bedroom Googling down a rabbit hole about pediatric epilepsy as I have done a thousand times before. I came across the PCDH19 Alliance website and in one paragraph I was introduced to PCDH19 epilepsy. As I read further the bullet points listing out symptoms were Allies. My eyes opened wide, and my heart was pounding as I read:

What Are The Symptoms Associated
With PCDH19 Epilepsy?

• Seizure clusters
• Autism spectrum disorder (estimated at 60%)
• Behavioral problems
• ADD/ADHD
• Anxiety
• Obsessions
• Cognitive and Intellectual issues
• Sleep disturbances
• Hypotonia
• Language delay
• Fine and gross motor deficits
• Normal development from infancy but with regression after seizure onset​

​I never heard about this kind of epilepsy. I continued to read the entire site. Feeling excited and scared all at once.
​
“THIS IS ALLIE!” I said to my husband lying next to me.

​What stood out the most while reading posts from other families. A small detail, but a genuine trait of our daughter, was that these children loved swimming just like Allie.