About 100 people turned out Saturday to raise funds for the Epilepsy Foundation at the annual Epilepsy Walk at Thompson Park in Amarillo.
With this event, the foundation raised funding for the West Texas area to make resources available to those with epilepsy at no cost. Participants enjoyed various activities, followed by a walk to enjoy the Amarillo Zoo.
Tiffany Schuler, development director of the Epilepsy Foundation Texas, spoke about the event’s importance in serving those with epilepsy and helping them better understand what services are available.
“We are gathered together to raise awareness and funds for people living with epilepsy in the West Texas area,” Schuler said. “We are excited to have this event grow. One in 26 people will be diagnosed with epilepsy in their lifetime. If you look at it like a children’s classroom with at least one child who will end up with epilepsy, that is a substantial number. We want to raise the number of participants and awareness to support more people.”
All funds from the event will go directly to the foundation’s programming and services. This includes helping to send children and teens to one of their weeklong summer camps so they can do all the things that average kids do. The foundation also has adult medical clinics where people with epilepsy can see neurologists and receive other lifesaving care. Educational services, including seizure first aid, recognition, and safety, are available for schools, businesses, and other entities.
Schuler stressed that epilepsy is unique, and signs can develop at any age, sometimes caused by brain trauma. Usually when people have two or more seizures, a doctor will diagnose those with epilepsy if the seizures are unprovoked.
“Epilepsy has a negative stigma, and the more we talk about it, the more people are willing to share their stories and talk about the fact that they have epilepsy,” she said. “Events like this are very crucial and make people that have epilepsy feel like they have community and support groups with people who understand them. I think that is really important when dealing with something of this nature.”
According to Schuler, epilepsy can look quite different than what many people picture as people falling to the floor and convulsing.
“There are a lot of various kinds of seizures, including people looking off into the distance while they are having a seizure,” Schuler said. “Seizure first aid and recognition training is particularly important, because it teaches people to recognize seizures and what they look like in different individuals.”
One of the biggest misnomers that Schuler says that she hears from talking to her epilepsy warriors is that they come across people who believe epilepsy is contagious.
“That is not true. It is not contagious, and that is one of the biggest things that we have to spread, messaging-wise,” Schuler said. “The foundation is trying to grow our program so that we can cover more people and have more people seen in our clinics here. Medication is also expensive; we want to help these individuals get assistance for prescriptions and other needed medical care.”
The goal of the foundation is to help people living with epilepsy in the Texas Panhandle. To find out more about the foundation, to get involved or to donate, go to https://www.eftx.org/ .
