Description
A humorous look at living with Epilepsy – Epilepsy is often misunderstood and even feared mostly through lack of knowledge. This book is a first-hand account that seeks to overcome misunderstandings through humorous real life (& often embarrassing!) experiences – straight from the horse’s mouth! Ideal for those who want to understand more about epilepsy in an informal way.
Meryl Brown Tobin –
Epilepsy Up Close and Personal
Once writer NeniaTavrou had a secret.
In her fifth book ‘A humorous look at living with Epilepsy’, she shares it in considerable detail.
How many people do you know who have travelled widely, worked in eleven countries as a volunteer and worked as a Projects Manager for a big corporation and shared intimate personal embarrassments and who is a warm, humorous and empathetic individual? Then meet Nenia Tavrou through her latest book in which she does all these things and talks about living a full life and more––despite the challenges of living with epilepsy.
From her opening sentence you jump right in with her: “I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was three.”
Then she proceeds to share the warning or aura, as she calls it, some sufferers get prior to losing consciousness.
“For me, my aura consists of sound being magnified 1000 fold so that it is quite painful …. [and] I also have a huge knot form in my stomach ….[At such times] I’m trying to assess my immediate situation to cause the least issues for both myself and those around me.” (p3).
Nenia soon learns to sit down quickly, preferably on a toilet in case she loses control of her bladder, which can happen. Such embarrassing moments she calls uh-oh moments. With experience she has cut them to a minimum, but, when she has them, she dismisses them with her ready sense of humour and wit.
One of her worst experiences was having her ultra-long hair shaved off before she had part of a brain operation to hopefully stop her seizures occurring when she was fifteen (p9). Subsequently she loathed wearing a scarf to cover her head. When she stopped wearing it she was surprised when a woman came up to her and said, “‘I love the artistic design on your head! Where’d you have it done? My daughter’s been looking to have hers done too.’” (p13).
Nenia is a storyteller with many stories to tell, not all directly connected with her epilepsy. One concerned a strange man in a kilt who stalked her for weeks.
Often Nenia was touched by the kindness of passersby who stopped to see she was all right after they had either watched her have a convulsion or come across her afterwards. One old lady returned money she had dropped and told her where to find one of her shoes that she hadn’t even realized she had lost (pp28-9).
Having epilepsy did not stop her meeting the love of her life and marrying him nor becoming a foster mother. Nor did it stop her studying and working for her church as a volunteer overseas in Africa, India, China and Cambodia.
A remarkable story about an ordinary yet extra-ordinary woman with a great capacity for love and life, ‘A humorous look at living with Epilepsy’ shows Nenia turning an embarrassment into something to laugh about. By sharing her experiences she shows others the way forward.
‘A humorous look at living with Epilepsy’, a 132 page A5 paperback with glossy pages has a striking purple cover and is beautifully-presented. Small Clip Art illustrations characterize her pages and break up the text. As the book is so informative and written in such an easy to read style, it is a must-read for those diagnosed with epilepsy, especially those newly-diagnosed, their families, friends, professionals and the general public. Providing not only very useful information not readily available anywhere else, but providing tips giving hope and a sense of security to those affected by epilepsy, it has the potential to do a lot of good.
Any readers wanting an informative and entertaining read should think about reading it. They are likely to find they will not want to put it down until they have finished.
Meryl Brown Tobin