I teach high school. Every year on the first day of school, I explain to my students about my daughter and her diagnosis of epilepsy. I show pictures. I explain what her life has been like, and situations that could cause me to be absent. Once the school year starts, I openly discuss seizures and epilepsy whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Today in one of my classes, I had a student that put his head down on his desk, and pretended to shake. I looked at him, and said, "Really..?" He said, "Oh, yeah...uh. Yeah. I know you don't think it's funny, but I really don't care about that. I'm not apologizing."
I'm having mixed reactions.
Part of me wants to leave my classroom and go cry. I'm so angry. I've requested that he be removed from my class immediately. I can't promise that I'll be nice to him ever again.
The rest of me sees that his reaction and general attitude is the biggest reason why we need epilepsy education. His behavior and general ignorance is the reason I am fighting this fight. I am going to change the world, and I have to start somewhere.
I'm going to wear a purple ribbon. I'm going to wear my epilepsy awareness shirt on Friday (Note to self: make/order one). I'm going to be so annoying with epilepsy awareness that people like that can't say a word without someone else jumping on him.
People like that can't win. I absolutely refuse to let them.
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