Epilepsy Blog Relay: Dad to a child with epilepsy

This post is part of the Epilepsy Blog Relay™. Follow along all month!

Dave is the father of an energetic, baseball(and hockey)-loving son who has refractory epilepsy. On Dave’s blog, Epilepsy Dad, he shares his experiences as Dad to a child with epilepsy in hopes that his words help other people who are on a similar journey. By sharing his story, Dave hopes to reach out to special needs families to let them know that they are not alone. Below is an excerpt from one of his latest posts:

Excerpt from Epilepsy Dad

Being a father is the most amazing experience of my life. It’s also the hardest, most fun, most frustrating, most rewarding, and scariest experiences of my life. I feel the pressure to give my son a very different childhood than I had and, most days, I feel ill-equipped to do so, but I am trying.

Adding to the challenge of just being a good father is being the father to a child with special needs. Even if there were a manual called How To Be a Good Dad, it’s the equivalent to trying to read that book in the dark. Every intention, every plan, every expectation went out the window and I had to start again looking through a very different lens.

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NEXT UP: Be sure to check out the next post tomorrow at https://livingwellwithepilepsy.com. For the full schedule on bloggers and more on epilepsy awareness, visit https://livingwellwithepilepsy.com.

Jessica K. Smith Founder and CEO; Executive Director

Jessica Keenan Smith is a patient advocate and epilepsy community leader with more than 15 years of experience. As Founder and CEO of Living Well With Epilepsy and Executive Director of ASENT she bridges the gap between the scientific and patient communities, with a particular focus on the needs of the epilepsies. Jessica Keenan Smith is Founder and CEO of Living Well With Epilepsy, an award winning online resource for people affected by epilepsy to share stories and access in-depth information on the disease. Since 2009, Living Well With Epilepsy (https://livingwellwithepilepsy.com) has been featured in Forbes, Wired, NBC, NPR and the cover story of Epilepsy Advocate Magazine and has partnered with companies such as UCB, Lundbeck, Sunovion, Eisai, and more. Ms. Smith is also the Executive Director of the American Society for Experimental Neurotherapeutics (ASENT) (https://asent.org), an organization that brings together leaders from industry, academia, government and advocacy who are engaged in bringing drugs and devices to market across all neurologic disease states. In this role she is responsible for leading a successful scientific journal and annual scientific conference with speakers from all over the world.

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