Welcome!
This is a challenge that is close to my heart. As the title says it's about Epilepsy. My nephew and I both have it. We are opposite ends of the extreme. I have petite mals which you can not tell that I'm having, he has grand mals that often put him in the hospital.
Let me tell you about epilepsy before we talk rules.
There are over 7 billion people in the world, of those 1 in every 10 has epilepsy. That's over 700,000,000 people. Roughly 50,000 people die from epilepsy in the United States every year. That's just 1 country, and the U.S. is not the highest death rate for epilepsy. There are several countries that have higher numbers of death from SUDEP than that.
Types of Seizures
Petite mals are so minor that often do not have any outward sign of what's occurring in the brain. Sometimes you might see their eyes flutter, but more often they simply stare at nothing for anywhere from a few seconds to extended periods of time.
Mini mals have convulsions to signal what's happening, but the convulsions can range from wild flailing, to minor twitching.
Grand mals are the most severe with not only violent convulsions that often end in injury of not only the person suffering, but those that get too close. These result in lose of bodily functions to the point of wetting yourself, emptying your bowels, and vomitting during the seizure.
Causes
Epilepsy can be genetic, trauma induced, or fever (febrille).
Genetic runs in the family and exact cause is unknown.
Trauma induced is caused by traumatic injury to the brain and may result in lifelong seizures or may end after healing.
Fever or Febrille induced is from a severe fever and typically effects small children under the age of 3 or elderly over the age of 60. These may become permanent if there is injury to the brain.
There are other causes too, these are just the ones I remember at the moment.
Epilepsy usually is "controlled" with medication. When my nephew first developed epilepsy, he took 8 pills per day, he now takes 26 per day, and still has seizures at least once per month.
Extensive testing can be done to determine if surgery is an option. If it is, there are 2 options. A neuro or brain implant that shocks the area of the brain where the seizure begins, or cut out the area of the brain that causes the seizure. The implant is very very new. The implant was approved by the FDA in 2013.
SUDEP stands for Sudden Unexpected or Unexplained Death in Epilepsy or of Epilepsy Patient. Everyone with epilepsy has some level of risk of suffering SUDEP. My nephew is high risk. I am low risk. More than 1 in every 1000 patients dies from SUDEP regardless of risk level. That's 700,000 people per year world wide.
March 26th is Epilepsy Awareness Day around the world.
According to one major organization for epilepsy, the chosen flower for epilepsy is lavender because it symbolizes isolation.
Personally, I think that wisteria is a better choice because it symbolizes Honor, Memory, Patience, Endurance, Longevity, Releasing burdens, and Victory over hardship. It has other meanings as well, but these meanings are the reason that it should be the flower for epilepsy.
While all of this sounds very dark and rather depressing, it can also be very inspiring. There are several organizations and foundations that have been started by epilepsy patients and/or their families because of their epilepsy, not in spite of it.
This challenge is about hope, education, awareness, understanding, love, endurance, and overcoming. With that being said...
Here are the rules:
1. The story can be C/U or A/U
2. It can be a 1 shot, or a chapter or a drabble series
3. Rating can be Any
4. The story must be
new and for this challenge, however you can use other challenges in the story, but it must be started for this challenge.
5. Genere can be any, with the exception that it can
not be strictly a dark/angst/horror/tragedy story. That means there needs to be some positive, upbeat undercurrent at a minimum.
6. The story must feature at least 1 major character from the InuYasha cast with epilepsy of 1 of the 3 types listed above. Character choice would be InuYasha, Sesshoumaru, Miroku, Shippo, Kagome, Sango, or Rin must have epilepsy. I will allow Jaken to be used as long as he has either severe mini mals (severe convulsive) or grand mals.
7. Use a minimum of half of the following 20 words or phrases as prompts:
awareness
education
endurance
Grand mal
honor
hope
inspire or inspiration
longevity
love
memory
mini mal
overcoming
patience
petite mal
releasing burdens
seizure
SUDEP
support
understanding
victory over hardship
8. You
MUST post a link or the web address to your story on
this thread in order to get the token(s) you earned. You
must list the story's rating and name.
Secondary challenge:
9. With the above rules, use wisteria in the story repeatedly for it's above mentioned symbolisms.
TOKENS!
There are 4 tokens
So I will put them in subsequent posts
If you do not want to write a story but want to support epilepsy awareness there is 1 token for that, that is free to everyone
There is 1 token for participating and following all of the rules
There is 1 token for using all of the words and following all of the rules
There is 1 token for the secondary challenge and following all of the rules
If you use ALL of the words AND do the secondary challenge you may have ALL 4 Tokens
If you want more information about Epilepsy or SUDEP please message me!
Favoured: 1
