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Epilepsy Blog Relay: Drake raises his voice for epilepsy research

This post is part of the Epilepsy Blog Relay™ which will run from March 1 to March 31, 2018. Follow along!

Drake Abramson was thirteen when he was diagnosed with epilepsy. Ever since, he has made it his mission and his passion to bring about substantive change in the world for people with epilepsy. For instance, he created his own nonprofit, ThinkBrave, to fund scholarships for students with health challenges within his community.

Drake’s Story

In 2011, I had my first seizure. After a period of being withdrawn and depressed about my diagnosis, I began speaking out about my epilepsy. Through my efforts to speak out and raise awareness, I met with many legislators on the state and federal level. I also met many people who need a voice to speak up for them. More importantly, they need a CURE! While raising awareness is important and I will continue to speak out to help improve the quality of life for those living with epilepsy, I have also seen the need for research to help find what causes seizures and how to stop them. That would truly improve the quality of life for so many!

I am a recent recipient of an Education Enrichment Fund scholarship from CURE and Lundbeck. This scholarship has had a huge impact on my ability to do the extra things in college such as study abroad. I am majoring in Political Science with a minor in International Relations. Thanks to this scholarship I will have the chance to study in Ireland next year for a semester. I plan on studying in a few other countries as well over the course of my four years. This is a very special opportunity that I feel very privileged to be able to take advantage of.

Ideally, I would love to help CURE on the legislative level. But for now I would like to work with CURE on two specific projects and anything they would like to include me in. The first is following a trend that many communities have engaged in. The “rocks.” You paint a rock and hide it in your community for someone else to find. I would like to do this on my college campus but with a twist. I want to do Research Rocks that have a fact or statistic about epilepsy and seizures on them. This will help raise awareness and educate anyone who finds one. On the back of each Research Rock would be the CURE website address for them to learn more. Second, is a project that would involve getting college students with epilepsy to join in and visit our Indiana State House to talk with legislators about how they can impact the needs of the epilepsy community.

The March 2018 Epilepsy Blog Relay™ was sponsored by Lundbeck – a global pharmaceutical company committed to improving the quality of life for those living with brain disorders, including epilepsy. Lundbeck connects people living with challenging seizures at www.LGSTogether.com and through the LGS Together Facebook page. 

The Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE) and Lundbeck Education Enrichment Fund (EEF) Scholarship is a one-time scholarship (up to $5,000) to cover tuition, books, and course materials for those living with epilepsy, or for family members and caregivers of those impacted by the disease. The scholarship is to be used toward coursework advancing personal knowledge in research, health education, advocacy and/or awareness in relation to the recipient’s experiences with epilepsy. Learn more about applying for the 2018 scholarship: http://bit.ly/2nSV6ac.


NEXT UP: Be sure to check out the next post by Susanna at www.skfantoni.com. For the full schedule of bloggers visit livingwellwithepilepsy.com.

TWITTER CHAT: And don’t miss your chance to connect with bloggers on the #LivingWellChat on April 2 at 7PM ET.

  1. Sherri
    | Reply

    Way to go Drake! Stepping out, conquering sigma is where it starts! I too am epileptic and have struggled yet keep fighting this phantom illness for more than 40 years . I have had epilepsy since birth. We all have something we deal with and Drake you are an inspiration. A young person , brave and brilliant!

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