A Good Hand

Today

My sister is recovering from having some seizures at the weekend. They came without any of the usual warning signs and without any of the usual triggers.

Fortunately for her, her step-daughter had popped over and found her "making no sense", and hustled her to hospital so she was in the right place when the worst happened.

Regretfully, it's back on full-time medication and going without the car for a year. Perhaps she'll go green and use a bike.

My sister has struggled with this condition since her early teens. It's rather intermittent; sometimes 7 or 8 years go by without an incident. She's always hoped that the condition would wear itself out over the years. That doesn't seem to be the case.

Discussing this with my brother and he said "She wasn't dealt a good hand, was she?"

In My Day

It took us a while to make the link between a severe fall she'd had at the age of about 2 (at the time the worst consequence seemed to be a broken collar bone) and the later occasions when she just didn't seem to be making sense. Requests to do one thing would result in a quite different action being carried out and she said some seriously odd things. To the teachers, too. Was she just being cheeky?

Gradually, Mamma realised that something was not well and took to keeping her at home on those odd days. Even when she was discovered, in her night clothes, having "fallen over" in a neighbour's garden we didn't make the connection.

I was aged about 15 and in the room alone with her when the first unmistakable incident occurred. She suddenly fell over (I had the presence of mind to shove the trolley out of the way so she wouldn't cut her head open) and rolled about in a most strange way. I yelled for help; the doctor was called and, after a battery of tests, the truth was revealed.

Along with Mamma I became expert at spotting the warning signs and have been known to frogmarch my sister to bed as she protested she was fine. Over the years there's no doubt that it has hampered her opportunities and the myriad drugs that have been tried have given her a range of side-effects. No wonder she hoped it would all go away.

Anyway, as my brother, whose bridge playing skills are of an international standard should know, it's not the cards you're dealt, it's how you play them that counts.