Introduction

I thought I might share some of my experiences having a son with epilepsy. Stuart is 11 years old. He had his first seizure at about 6 1/2 years old. I found him that afternoon lying in the street in front of our house, unconscious, with his eyes rolled over to the right side. I thought he'd been hit by a car, but there was no blood! After a CAT scan and and EEG, he was put on Trileptal. Things were fine for about a year, when he had another seizure. He has had a few a year, on and off, since. The longest he has gone seizure-free is 1 1/2 years. His seizures are complex partial seizures, which involve loss of consciousness, head and eyes turning to the right. After a few years, he also began having convulsions - not something a parent ever wants to see! On one occasion, he lost bladder and bowel control, but fortunately that hasn't happened again. All seizures up until last fall happened at home, so we didn't have to deal with the trauma of having one at school.