The earthquake in Mineral, Virginia on 8/23/2011 was a rare event, and I am thankful that only minor injuries and damage have been reported. At the time, I was sitting in a car, and it felt as if a really strong man bounced my car up and down for about twenty to thirty seconds. Then I saw people running out of a nearby building, and I realized, it was an earthquake. A unique experience, that you cannot predict. In a way, an earthquake is a lot like seizures, that affect many. Roughly 3% of people have seizures, and they can come on at any time, without warning.
Seizures are a serious medical condition. Some have tried to write them off as a "minor issue," but there's nothing funny about them. They have caused lots of children to be in Intensive Care Units, ambulance and paramedic services to be utilized, cognitive effects, induced coma's, or in some cases death. That's right, gone forever. When you see your child, seizing up uncontrollably hundreds of times a day, there are no words that can ever be written, to describe such wretched misery. When a parent has to bury their little boy or girl, it is a crushing of the soul, that causes their hearts to be scarred forever.
So what can you do about it? Get involved. Learn about seizures, and help folks like the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center's Angelman Seizure Project. There are numerous types of seizures, and just like earthquakes, they vary in intensity and periods of duration. These unpredictable events create seismic levels of pain to families across the globe. Yesterday's earthquake in Virginia was a minor blimp. Yet seizures are not, and that is why they must be cured with due haste. Parents and their children are counting on you right now, whether it is spreading awareness, holding fundraisers, or helping those whom are contending with this issue. God bless the brave souls whom deal with seizures on a daily basis, and those who love them. Everyday they have earthquakes, that are far more painful, and lead to irreversible damage.
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