Tag: Thanksgiving

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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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What am I thankful for?

I’m thankful for Thanksgiving dinner with my family and the warmth of my home instead of sitting outside a store for two days in the cold, wind and snow, waiting for the opportunity to buy a cheap DVD player and/or get trampled by people who want to buy the same cheap DVD player. Because, you know, holiday spirit and all that. I hope you all found reasons to be thankful today as well.

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Happy Mid-Christmas Season Holiday!

Part of me is tempted to start making a list (and checking it twice) of a bunch of things I’m thankful for this year, but why say it today in particular? Shouldn’t I be thankful for those things all the time? Except maybe gluttony—spending a few hours fattening myself up with extended family doesn’t happen very often. So let everyone else say “I’m thankful for…” and I’ll say something more like “I’ll try to appreciate on a more consistent basis…”

As for all of you out there who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving… just because I like to be inconsistent and keep people on their toes, I’m thankful that you guys are around to read this. So happy Thanksgiving to all (and to all a good night)!

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Less than inspired

I’m not sure why today feels like such a “blah” day. Maybe it’s because I had class yesterday and I’m feeling a “blah” aftermath, maybe it’s because Thanksgiving is tomorrow and today is “blah” in comparison… I’m sure there are other potential reasons and at least one of them is good enough to make this feel like a “blah” day.

It’s not like I haven’t accomplished anything today. We’re getting together with Mom’s side of the family for lunch—there’ll be 15 of us there—and we’re supposed to bring a salad. Since we’re awesome, we took the recipe for an eight-layer salad and added three more. If you include the mayo on top (which adds some flavor and preserves the moisture and freshness of the ingredients underneath), we made a 12-layer salad. It looks mighty impressive in the glass punch bowl we used so you can see all the different colors and layers.

Okay, I’m feeling slightly more inspired now, but I can’t think of much else to write about. Still, it’s an entry for today, so I’m still keeping pace with National Blog Writing Month and there’s just a week to go. Yay me! (Incidentally, I’m way behind in copying and pasting my blog entries into Word documents that I can save on my laptop or a flash drive—that’s the reason I still had almost all of the old stuff for reposting after I lost shawnbakken.com—so I’m gonna be spending some loooooong hours making up for that one of these days. And that’s not so yay.)

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Reasons to be thankful

I’m adapting this story from a cartoon: the original was about “grace,” but I think it makes a dang good Thanksgiving story. (Unfortunately, I don’t who the artist is, so if any of you know, leave a comment and I’ll provide an additional bit of thanks.)
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A mother sits at a table with a sheet of paper in front of her and a pencil in her hand. “Okay… I’m gonna list five things I’m thankful for today.” She begins writing:

    • That my boss didn’t catch me coming in late.
    • That my car’s not making any funny noises.
    • That my property tax bill isn’t due till next month.
    • That the spot on my good suit came out at the cleaners…

As the mother continues to think, she glances over and sees her daughter with paper and pencil as well. The daughter begins listing out loud:

    • Stars
    • Chocolate
    • Pajamas
    • Dogs
    • Magic tricks
    • Songs
    • Dragonflies
    • Yo-yos…

As the daughter’s list gets longer and longer, the mother proclaims, “I like your list better.”