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need more education on seziures in schools...

Sat, 06/30/2007 - 00:48
There has to be some way to educate Teachers on what to look for... not to ignore things.. It should come in with basic CPR.. and first AID training at this point..sigh... My 14 year old son had two eegs done a little over a year ago.. the sleep eeg was normal..the other one showed adnormal spikes.... Having ep myself.. i have kept a journal on him and was waiting for our family dr. to discuss this further... but alas our family dr. closed his pratice due to the fact that he has cancer.. At home my son would say he had an "eposidoe" where everything would sort of fade out then fade back in.... sometimes this would happen a couple of times in one day then not again for 3-4 weeks... In the meantime i had sent a letter to my family dr. asking for copys of the eegs and a referal to a neuro...(not mine..he is an idiot..sigh) I had also informed the teachers in his room that i strongly believed that zach was having what i believed to be seziures and could they keep an eye out for anything adnormal.. and call me right away and did they have any questions... they both informed me that they did not ... they knew all about it...yeah right... Fast forward to the last day of school,,, i am at the gym taking down the decorations from grad and i am discussing things with one of zacks teachers and she comments that she had , had an issue with zack for most of the year ...she would be talking to him and he would be staring straight ahead and she would have to reapeat herself 3-5 times before he would look at her and say...huh? i felt like screaming at her... I calmly asked her is that did not strike her as adnormal...she of course answered yes..then i asked her is she recalled our conversation on the first day and again near xmas...she again said yes... then i lost it...grin.. can anyone else say absence seziures besides me...sigh... i am so furious... why is it they can call me at home to complain that the boy forgot his math book again.. but not to tell me that this is happening quite frequently in class...sigh.. so tomorrow we are off to open clinc to get a referall to neuro.. i am not waiting any longer for the dr. notes they will have to dig them up from the hospital...at this point.. i am hoping we can do something about this before the boy starts school in september... thanks for letting me vent... heather

Comments

Re: need more education on seziures in schools...

Submitted by itsmyeviltwin on Sat, 2007-06-30 - 02:48
Heather, I know you're venting so I won't say too much to defend teachers (which is what I want to do), other than to say they are grossly overburdened and underpaid for the responsibility they shoulder these days. My sister, who was an awesome teacher, had to leave the profession she loved... totally burned out, unable to take the outrageous criticisms of parents, the mainstreamed, seriously ill kids forced into her classroom, and unsupportive school boards and government politics...all this on top of educating 25 kids which alone is not an easy task. All I can say is we catch more flies with honey than vinegar...make your sons' teachers your allies not your enemy...thats my advice. Hope your son grows out of this if it is indeed E. I hear the juvinile forms can be outgrown sometimes. :) Good luck to you with his upcoming testing.

Re: Re: need more education on seziures in schools...

Submitted by heather1 on Sat, 2007-06-30 - 08:29
Im sorry if i sound like i am comming down so hard on teachers...sigh.. my two older sons are 22 and 20 now... and trust me i do admire anyone who teaches... personally you would not catch me caught in a classroom trapped with 25 kids all day long... This is not the teacher per say i am speaking about,, it was her first year... it was a teachers assissant and they gave her 2 this year as it was her first year teaching,,, they both had over 20 years experience... and my son was in grade 8 it was a blended class wth the grade 7's... total class of 22.. 12 grade 8's....smile... small area... so the parents were all over as volunteers... in class,, breakfast clubs... fun fair,, chili nite.. grad committie,,,,smile and the teachers aid had been told about the seziures and been asked to report any unusal behavouir at the beginning of the year and again during the middle.. and of course we met many times during many of the volunteer events... There was plenty of options for this to be discussed..... So i am sorry if i offended you... but after being with my children in the school system for so many years...and the oldest two are ADHD...if i can be called every other day to report that someone if fidgiting in class again... i am sure someone can call me to report that my son is constantly seeing to zone out in class....especially after being alerted numerours times to on the lookout for this... Heather

You didn't offend me and I

Submitted by itsmyeviltwin on Sat, 2007-06-30 - 13:37
You didn't offend me and I do understand. And if you told them specifically what to watch for I would be angry too. i guess its sad truth that groups generalize to what they know. cops throw post ictal folks and diabetic coma folks in jail because they think overdose...teachers think daydream, not applying,and get into their 'zone' of thinking. I hope things go better for you soon. I forgot to add I too have a child with ADHD and empathize..it was hard to make his teachers my allies...I did want to strangle them sometimes.LOL. I tried to keep telling myself his education was their 'prize' and they had tunnel vision sometimes (sigh) Hey why not channel your energy towards an educational presentation on E geared to teachers in your school system? Once I'm feeling better I'd like to do this myself. Best wishes, Deb

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