Tag: gratitude

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Epilepsy Awareness Month, Day 22: Gratitude Edition

I’ve managed to write a lot of gratitudes this year and acknowledge a lot of blessings in my life. Given that today is Thanksgiving, which is in the middle of Epilepsy Awareness Month, why not put together a batch of epilepsy gratitudes? A lot of people might see “epilepsy” and think, “How could there possibly be anything related to epilepsy that’s worthy of gratitude?” Well, we’re about to find out!

  1. My support network (aka, my family and friends). I don’t talk about having epilepsy much—it’s not something that comes up in conversation over Thanksgiving dinner—but when people I care about find out, they’ve always been extremely supportive. No one’s been scared off, no one’s tried to chase me away… it hasn’t cost me any relationships and not everyone with epilepsy has had that luxury.

  2. Medications. Even when they haven’t prevented my seizures altogether (that was a good 15-year stretch…), they’ve limited their frequency and severity. I stopped taking my medication once. I was in the epilepsy ward at United Hospital and they were trying to induce seizures. It worked. I had seizures. And I have no plans to let that happen again, so I’m grateful for my meds.

  3. United Hospital’s epilepsy ward. I spent about a week and a half there back in 2001-02 (yes, I spent that New Years Eve with a bunch of wires glued to my head and a not-very-festive-looking football helmet on top of that). I don’t know how many seizures I had or how many different types, but those wires helped us find the problem area in my brain: the left temporal lobe. That in turn helped us find the medications that prevented my seizures for 15 years.

  4. Minnesota Epilepsy Group. I’ve worked with a lot of smart doctors there and they’ve been really helpful trying to keep my epilepsy under control.

  5. Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota. I’ve done volunteer work with them for about a year and a half: reading at an arts showcase, working at their State Fair booth, volunteering at Camp Oz (a summer camp for kids), attending their monthly support group… being able to help others with epilepsy has been good for my heart and soul.

  6. Having epilepsy. Yes, that’s right, having epilepsy. It’s absolutely a frustrating condition at times, but it’s also given me the opportunity to do a lot of things and meet a lot of people I never would have otherwise. It’s a big part of who I am today and I’m very grateful for that.

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Gratitudes 2018, Day 66

  1. TV. Yes, it can absolutely be a time-suck that turns you into a mindless zombie enslaved by the corporate masses, but it can also help you cheer on your favorite sportsball teams (SKOL Vikings!), learn new things (SKOL Discovery Channel!) and watch shows that poke you right in the feels (SKOL Emotions!).

  2. Remote controls. I like not having to get up, walk over to the TV, then turn the knob to change channels and find the show that should be on, but the sportsball match earlier went into overtime, so now you’re stuck watching the news for another 20 minutes.

  3. DVR. You can skip past commercials and record shows that you might miss because real life sometimes happens at the same time that they’re playing.

  4. This Is Us. Thankfully, I haven’t needed to invest in tissues this season (the show used to thrive on poking its viewers right in the feels), but it still has strong plot lines with good plot twists, strong characters… I really like it.

  5. A Million Little Things. Thanks to the DVR, Teresa and I were able to watch the first two episodes tonight… talk about good plot twists… yowza. Same deal with plot lines and characters. I really like it. (It’s also a show that invites self-reflection and kinda nudges a person to sit back, think about all of your blessings in the world, then write some gratitudes.)

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Gratitudes 2018, Day 65

I’ve reached a point where writing these feels a bit tedious, which is likely because I keep writing them at the end of the night when I could/should be sleeping instead. Gratitudes might be good first thing in the morning, start off with a pleasant feeling because of the awesomeness all around us. They’re not quite as good when you look at the clock and see all of the minutes passing by that you could be using for sleep… nuts.

  1. Nuts. An excellent source of protein.

  2. Peanuts. An excellent source of legumes. (Seriously, I know a guy who has a nut allergy, but he can eat peanuts. Go figure…)

  3. Weather apps. I like being able to look at my phone and see the weather conditions I’ll be walking into when I take the dogs outside in the morning.

  4. Weather forecasts. I have three weather apps on my phone. When I looked this morning, the current temperature was 5, 6, and 7 degrees below the predicted low temperature for the day. “The low is supposed to be 43. That’s usually around 4:00 in the morning and sunny at 8:30 will feel like 50, right?” Or just above freezing, which is almost the same thing, right?

  5. Electricity. It powers the fan in the corner (the gray noise helps muffle sounds that might make Sophie start barking), the lamp next to the bed to help me stay awake and my cell phone to write gratitudes on what’s becoming a semi-regular basis. But no matter how much I might grumble about the time it takes to write them, it still reminds me that there’s a lot to feel grateful for in the world. Maybe that helps me sleep more peacefully, but maybe I should try starting the day off right instead…

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Gratitudes 2018, Day 64

  1. Scabs. Nature’s Band-Aids. Helps heal damage inflicted on yourself while playing goalie (keeper) in a soccer game.

  2. Yelling “KEEEEEEP!!!” Which is another way of saying “I’M GOING TO CATCH THE SOCCER BALL NOW, SO IF YOU RUN INTO ME, BE READY TO EARN YOURSELF SOME OF NATURE’S BAND-AIDS!!!”

  3. Gloves. More specifically, goalie gloves. The material helps me hold onto the ball and also provides cushioning when it hits my hands really hard.

  4. Dry clothes. There was a pretty good likelihood of rain during the game on Sunday, so packing a bag of dry clothes seemed like a great idea. Change out of wet clothes and into dry ones so I don’t drip all over the floor whenever I enter a building.

  5. A lack of rain. I don’t get wet, I don’t need dry clothes and I don’t end up covered in little rubber bits from the turf that stick to wet surfaces.

  6. Folded clothes. I like clean clothes and folding them makes it easier to put them into my dresser drawers. (However, doing that sometimes means I go to bed very late, so I don’t have time to write gratitudes that night…)

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Gratitudes 2018, Day 63

  1. New soccer cleats. You’re looking at a picture of the old one for my right foot. I bought a lot of new soccer gear recently—meet the reason I bought new footwear for my game tomorrow.

  2. Remembering I needed new cleats. It kept slipping my mind this week, but last night, I wrote myself a note so I wouldn’t forget. Packing my gear on Sunday morning for an 8:30 game and finding this… yeah, that’s a no-go for playing that day.

  3. Dick’s Sporting Goods. Not too far of a drive with a decent selection of soccer cleats. It took a few tries to find a pair that fits well enough, but I had the time and they had the selection.

  4. The kid working in Dick’s shoe department. He didn’t know a lot about cleats, but he knew enough. And he’s the person who got them out of the back room, so I’m grateful he was able to do that for me, too.

  5. Buying the cleats a day before the game. Sure, wearing them for a couple hours while sitting around the house doesn’t do much for breaking them in, but not doing much is way better than nothing at all.

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Gratitudes 2018, Day 62

I was holding onto two dog leashes, one in each hand, when I got a phone call from my brother Brent tonight. (I knew it was him right away—he has a very distinct ringtone on my phone that spooked the dogs a little when it started.) I had to juggle things around a bit before I could grab my phone. He then told me he was stuck on the interstate because of a car fire and I found out later that his drive home lasted THREE HOURS LONGER THAN USUAL.

  1. I live close to work. Instead of 35-45 minutes, my drive is just over two miles in the suburbs and takes about five minutes. I could walk to work and back several times in the 3:45 it took him to get home tonight.

  2. I can avoid major traffic jams. See: short drive to work.

  3. I have a fully functional car. It’s never been on fire.

  4. 2Cellos. Hearing their cover of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” coming from my phone is how I knew Brent was calling. And if you ever hear the song, you’ll know why it spooked the dogs a little.

  5. Our dogs can pee quickly before bed. Brent and I were talking on the phone—him stuck in traffic, me making sure the dogs pee—and they finished… he might have moved fifty feet during that time. “Might have” being a very key term here. So the dogs finished doing their business and we went back inside while Brent spent ANOTHER TWO HOURS in traffic. Yeah, definitely grateful that I got inside my house before he got to his.