Epilepsy: A Walk in My Shoes

By Vickie Roy

In Epilepsy: A Walk In My Shoes, author Vickie Roy sheds light on her daily life with epilepsy. She walks us through her experiences with the condition and offers insight on how to independently cope.Vickie hopes to emphasize that while life with epilepsy is not easy, nothing is impossible. And there are many people that deal with it on a daily basis. Nobody is alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vickie Roy
• Release date: Sep 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463891865

Vickie Roy

RESIDENT OF BERLIN, NH, author and artist Vickie Roy has walked life with epilepsy for the last forty-nine years. A mother, wife, teacher, and advocate, she makes it her goal to bring awareness to her condition and break stereotypes.

Book preview

Epilepsy: A Walk In My Shoes

Epilepsy: A Walk In My Shoes

By

Vickie Roy

JAHbookdesign | York

*This book is a work of nonfiction. I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances I have changed the names of individuals and places, I may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations and places of residence.

*Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition: Sept 2019

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Copyright © 2019 by Vickie Roy. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

All rights reserved.

ISBN -13: 9781687584304

Cover Design by Joshua Holmes

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my father’s younger brother David, who experienced seizures and left this world too soon.

Forward

I hope this book and information is useful to people who have questions about epilepsy. I am not a doctor, but I have lived with the condition my whole life.

PART ONE

GROWING UP

Chapter 1

Growing up in Dresden

Dresden, Maine is a small farming community located about twenty minutes south of Augusta. The population today I believe is around twenty-five hundred. When I grew up there, it was smaller than that. Over time, people moved to the town and more houses were built.

We lived in West Dresden. Which is near the Kennebec River (the longest river in the state). About a mile behind the house is the Eastern River. It goes from Pittston, Maine through Dresden; About three to five miles south of the house, the Eastern River flows out into the Kennebec.

A mile or two south of the house were several vegetable farms. Emil Popps which sat up on a dirt road, then the Gorinson’s. Their main crop was potato. The next one was Green Point Farms, and the Carlson’s who also had potatoes as a main crop.

During the summer a lot my friends and I worked at Green Point Farm, some at Popp’s farm picking strawberries. To us, it was a big deal, although it was only about twenty-five to fifty cents per quart for every one we filled. We had fun working in the fields.

At Green Point Farm they also had an apple orchard. They pressed their own apples to make cider. I remember on the weekends working with my father’s wife and my father picking up what they called dropped apples (meaning ones that were bruised and had recently fallen off the tree). Then Bob Gleason took the bushels of apples from the orchard to the cider press about five miles down the road. He pulled them on a flatbed trailer with a farm tractor. His wife Doris was at the press loading the apples into the cider press to make fresh cider.

Those are definitely days I miss. I can remember getting a drink of the warm cider fresh off the press.

Unfortunately, Green Point Farm is