I think people that think they can take care of someone with epilepsy need to know if what they’re doing is right, before they start to go overboard and possibly hurt them. They should take a class or talk with a family member, a friend, or a doctor.
This is really important information to know because what to try or not try can make seizures last longer and possibly worse. Because if they’re ever with a person with epilepsy and they start to see them have a seizure, they need to know what makes them safer and what does not.
The reason I’m writing this is one day I started to have one of my small non-convulsive seizures. I’m very lucky. My little seizures make me a little dazed and confused for just a couple of minutes. And one day in Grand Rapids, MN I started to have one of my small seizures. Still not knowing who it was that was worried about me and called the ambulance, a Grand Rapids, MN police officer came because he thought he needed to show up.
He then took charge because he thought that was the right thing for him to do being a police officer. But he put me in handcuffs even though I shouldn’t be restrained, that will make things go a lot worse for me. Then harder for the ambulance workers to make sure I get back to myself. With this happening to me they said I became a little combative for the first time in my hundreds of seizures. I had to be handcuffed because of a seizure; they even thought they needed to be tightened.
They didn’t even take them off of me when the ambulance had me restrained to the bed for the ride. This made my small seizure last a little longer and with the handcuffs still on and really tight. I wasn’t able to protect my head from bouncing off the bed during the ride and like my epilepsy doctor said this could have caused an even worse head trauma then I already had. They even tightened them so tight I had to wear a wrist brace on both wrists for 3/4 of the year.
That’s why I say people like police officers that think they should always be the one in charge need to take a class maybe a couple of times, so they know what to do if they take charge, even though the ambulance should be the ones in charge during medical calls and the police should not show up till they are called. It’s also very important that a person with epilepsy wear a medical necklace or medical wristband.
Don’t be quiet to others about your epilepsy so they can get this important information about the right way to help others having a seizure.
