By Purple Rose Candles and the South Carolina Advocates for Epilepsy (SAFE)
Epilepsy is a mysterious condition with causes that are not always fully understood. It is a disorder that affects the central nervous system and causes seizures that range from mild to severe. Seizures may cause: a loss of consciousness, convulsions, shaking, a staring spell and/or temporary confusion.
Many people develop the disorder in childhood and outgrow it, while others cope with it for their entire lives. Anyone may have an unexplained seizure once during a lifetime. It’s also possible to have one that is provoked by an illness or injury. But a diagnosis of epilepsy means having two or more unprovoked seizures.
Epilepsy can be treated, and precautions can control seizures and minimize injuries. In fact, most people with epilepsy live long and normal lives. Here are a few people with epilepsy that you may have heard of:
Rap superstar Lil Wayne, amazing actor Danny Glover, former Atlanta falcons running back Jason Snelling, legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young, British singer Susan Boyle, the legendary performer and Grammy award-winner, Prince, Hugo Weaving best known for his roles in the matrix and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, passionate artist Vincent Van Gogh, legendary scientist Sir Isaac Newton, English novelist Charles Dickens, famous sculptor Michelangelo, incredible architect, botanist, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, and writer Leonardo Da Vinci, poet Edgar Allen Poe, and 26th president of the United States Theodore Roosevelt.
Seizures can be disruptive and sometimes cause injuries, but they can be controlled with treatment. As these accomplished people listed demonstrate, epilepsy doesn’t have to stop you from enjoying your life and finding success in all you do. And as these children below showed us at Focus on Fabulous magazine that even at such young ages, they too are unstoppable heroes!