More of a Wwyd - friends son with epilepsy

It would be fantastic to think that your post is the exception rather than the rule. However, when Epilepsy Action and the Epilepsy Society both had their forums, discrimination in the workplace was a frequent subject of posts.
I’ve encountered it enough times to make me cynical.
I hope that you have a more enlightened and understanding workplace now.
Also I agree some people shouldn’t be allowed to watch the evening news. They probably shouldn’t be allowed to read tabloids either.

Years ago I was suffering from regular seizures . Mostly early morning when I as awake . Being the obstinate I am I carried on working, a carer / driver being paid for by Access to Work when I needed it . A few happened at work not many . People dealt with it .

One day after a bad episode when I needed a paramedic - several one after another , one person got really distressed apparently. She wasn’t even nearby or involved and complained . With a result that I was temporarily removed from the workplace . Whilst wellbeing at work and HR got me back in pretty quickly, It took a few months for me to win my discrimination case. Manager was ordered to go on discrimination training and there was general training for all staff on epilepsy and seizures in general .

At the time following the incident , I retorted that some people were not even fit to watch the 10 o’clock evening news .

Second post about this poor woman and her seizure/s at the aqua class.

Nothing like banging home a point.

I remember my mother once telling me straight faced, how distressing it was when another diner had a seizure when she was out with friends. It is strange. My husband worked with someone who had more frequent TCs than I did and he didn’t find it distressing, he dealt with it.

Just who was it distressing for? Chances are she wouldn’t be too delighted about your two posts quantifying the upset that her seizure activity caused. She likely just hopes everyone will forget about it.

You mentioned that you didn’t find out for quite a long time that your child’s epilepsy was triggered by sunlight flickering between trees, neither did my parents, it isn’t an obvious thing and what is required to affect different individuals would make this a horrendously long post.

Epilepsy can also be triggered by heat, pool atmospheres can frequently feel warm /humid especially during classes despite the cool water then there’s dehydration or/ and compromised thermoregulation also there is a reflex epilepsy that is triggered by exercise.

This woman may have found out the hard way in class that one of these things may be her triggers. One seizure you could put down as pure bad luck, two, she really might not have been aware of a related trigger.

I was teaching an exercise class once and had a seizure in front of the class. I was overtired, hungry and overworked. I was almost finished the class and thought I would make it. The class were lovely about it….well most of them.
Ten years later (yep….ten) I met a woman from the class and we started chatting about the class. She mentioned the seizure. To me it was an ‘oh yeah! That one…’
She started to catastrophise the details of what happened to the point that I stopped objecting and just listened in horror to this fantasy that she created around my seizure.
The kindest way of explaining this that I have is that she was distressed and built up a whole new set of memories dwelling on the event. But why the hell tell me? Catharsis of some kind?

Drop this thing with the aqua class woman. From your posts all you know is that her seizures appeared to come on suddenly, you don’t know how long ago she was diagnosed or what she herself knows about her condition yet.

Quit using a strangers symptomatic medical cond ition, that you have no historical knowledge off and no idea of how she is affected other than outwardly, as an example of how quickly seizures can appear to come on.

I only decided to bring this up again because two posts was excessive, but you might have been distressed enough to make another. Don’t be like the stranger banging on to me about a fantastical seizure ten years after it happened.

It wasn’t your drama.

I’d be trying to get near the friend to be around when he set out on a lesson so you can see who the driving school is, and maybe even call the police to let them know he was on the road.

I was in Glasgow when the bin lorry driver mowed down several people after taking unwell, and then shortly after it happened (and he’d been banned from driving), he was caught driving his car around. He’d killed half a dozen people, was not safe to drive as his condition wasn’t under control, but he got into his car and kept driving. And the courts gave him a slap on the wrist for being caught behind the wheel again. He is a despicable man, but seeing what happened has left me with very very strong feelings on anyone driving when they know they are unsafe to drive. People die. He could kill people.

Report to everyone you can.

I was at an aqua class at the gym a few weeks ago and a woman had a seizure in the pool. It was very distressing. It turned out she had one the previous week too! It just goes to show you that people don't always know they are coming. She thought she would be ok.....

@mamagogo1 the original post was at the beginning of August this year.

That would make the seizure frequency more than one a month.
Saying that eight seizures this year so far ‘isn’t bad’ completely ignores the fact that it is eight seizures this year too many to be driving and to hold a provisional licence.

Whilst I appreciate, as @BlueandWhitePorcelain and yourself mentioned some people can have upwards of multiple seizures a day this isn’t the issue here.

No one is discussing whether the kid’s epilepsy is refractory or whether his seizures could be managed more effectively. We are discussing whether the OP should report him and the answer to that is an overwhelming ‘yes’.

I notice this thread is active again, I would love to know the outcome OP. Did you report the lad and is he now off the road? If you have already updated us and I have missed it I apologise

Yes, DD can have 150 seizures in a day.

The attitude of the mother and son in the OP’s post enraged me.

It is the kind of selfish, irresponsible and thoughtless behaviour that makes the overwhelming majority of us who have ever had to choke back anticonvulsant medication on a daily basis and have a grain of common sense roll our eyes and wonder if saying something about shaking sense into the two idiots would be politically incorrect.

He wants his driving license…awh! And given that if he is uncontrolled, how long exactly does the idiotic child think he will hold on to it. If he doesn’t kill himself or someone else losing it!

The thing here that is even more worrying, if mother and son are prepared to perpetrate fraud to obtain a provisional license and to get the child driving lessons, the one year rule is, in the main, self policing. Unless you end up as the floor show, seizing somewhere public and are whisked off by the guys in green jumpsuits, it it pretty much up to you to admit to any seizure that you just came round from at home, witnessed by the dog. This honesty protects us and everyone else.
If someone is prepared to lie to get their driving license, I would put good money on it that they will continue to lie to keep it.

You need to ensure that this kid doesn’t get his license until he is controlled and has his clear year. You need to inform the driving instructor and the driving school, apparently the DVLA takes ages to do anything, friends who have rescinded their licenses have told me that after the year getting them back is a process.

As someone else said, pretend you are asking for a recommendation for a friend’s DC. Or say you or a friend are interested in a specialist course (don’t drive, no clue, husband drives all sorts, don’t know if every driving instructor does the weird stuff).

Please don’t have panic attacks. You are doing the right and responsible thing. Just do it quickly, please.
Regardless of what seizure type this kid has, regardless of whether he gets advance warning of his seizures, he hasn’t been clear of seizures long enough to have a provisional license and be driving, act now, report him and get him off the road.

Roughly 1 in 100 people have epilepsy. It is one of the most common neurological conditions and the most stigmatised, stereotyped and misunderstood by far. The actions of the mother and son that the OP mentioned are the sort that don’t help the stigma related to the condition and from reading through other posts on this thread the stereotypes and misunderstandings are all alive and kicking as well.

So... with their foot on the brake, how do they lever the fitting person off the steering wheel and get past them to switch the car off/take hold of the steering wheel...

You realise a fitting person may be rigid, may lash out with arms and head and trying to keep a vehicle stationary, whilst it is in gear, with someone standing on the accelerator, by standing on the brake yourself could be quite difficult..

And the instructor would have to react with lightning speed when they don't actually have a CLUE what is going on as they don't know the lad has epilepsy.

I'm sorry to hear that. Sounds tough.

Just a comment as I had seen the term fits used by other posters. It wasn't an attack on you, I'm sorry if you read it that way. Thanks

Yes, I don't dispute that any type of seizure merits telling the DVLA and a ban.

I also wonder how this would affect the insurance?

This thread is nuts. Some people really think it's safe for a driving instructor to use their controls and grab the steering wheel while the driver is having an epileptic seizure next to them. How quickly would they get control of the vehicle? 2 seconds? Longer? What could happen in those few seconds if, say, overtaking on a dual carriageway or driving past a school at 3.30?

You still have to tell the dvla and they decide if you can drive.

Focal seizures are not deja vu by themselves; they're accompanied by other symptoms and it's a very specific deja vu experience. I have focal seizures that present with deja vu; it would still be seriously dangerous for me to drive while having one and I'm still not allowed to drive until I'm a year clear of them.

My post was based on the details from the OP, and in this case, it's illegal, hence my statement.

Additionally, I didn't use the word 'fits' so I'm not sure of the relevance of you quoting my post.

While I agree there are some peculiar remarks, driving if you have epilepsy isn't illegal per se. You need to be a year seizure-free (it might be different if you've got nocturnal seizures only). According to the OP, this isn't the case here, which would make it illegal. There's also, as an aside, lots of different types of epilepsy - it's largely an umbrella term - so you might not have the traditional unconsciousness, jerking at the limbs which is traditionally associated. Deja vu can be a seizure. And please don't call them fits! It's becoming increasingly offensive in the epilepsy community.

I've got no idea who their GP is though. This person is the older sibling of one of my young adult DC's friends. I know their name and the village they live in. I know they've been having seizures that haven't yet been diagnosed or explained for over a year. I know they still drive. But I've no idea of their exact address or date of birth or driving license number or their GP! I did do an online report with the info I have, but got a reply the next day saying it couldn't be taken further as I hadn't supplied all the necessary info.

Fortunately my DC has the sense not to accept a lift from them but they regularly drive a car full of young adults around.

@GeniuneWorkOfFart you can tell their GP, anonymously if you like. They will act.

theres No excuse for this. It’s unfair on the instructor for a start (insurance implications) and if anything was to happen on a lesson not only would obviously everyone around be at risk, but insurance potentially wouldn’t pay out.

Right now this lad thinks it’s fine to take the risk, but it won’t stop. Say he passes his test and then what? He’s on the road - ALONE. Of course he’s not going to stop once he passes his test!

someone needs to raise the alarm. Better now, for him to get the seizures under control, than get a ban just after he passed and then loses on the road experience

Which part of the young man having no lawful way of driving a motor vehicle on public roads is difficult to understand?

I’m an old person and I thought I’d seen a fair bit of the best and worse of people but have learned such a lot more about people since I’ve been visiting Mumsnet.

Some of the comments on this thread really do take the biscuit. As a previous poster said this is a classic, not for the original question but for the sheer irrationality of some of the posts/posters.

If something is illegal, it’s illegal, it’s illegal for a purpose. We’re not talking about a pinch of weed or not paying your vehicle tax; this is potentially life threatening to the learner, the instructor and any other poor person who might get in the way of an out or control car. Posters have explained that some forms of epilepsy could cause the driver’s hands to lock on the steering wheel (= instructor can’t steer), thrash their arms around (= potentially knocking instructor out). We don’t even know if the learner is learning on a dual control vehicle; not everyone does.

The learner has lied to the DVLA to get a provisional license; heaven alone knows where that leaves the instructor and his insurance.

Apart from the fact that this is illegal some posters seem to think it’s OK. They are talking out of the backs of their necks or, actually, two foot further south. How would they feel if they were in OP’s position and discovered her friend’s son had had a seizure and killed themselves, the instructor and the queue of people at a bus stop ?

I really am appalled. Good on you OP for being pro-active. I hope you manage this without losing her as a friend but if she was my friend I would be viewing her in a very different light now.

I never knew when I was going to have a seizure, I would sometimes have a seizure whilst talking to someone. Very unpredictable and also dangerous.