A man from Green Hammerton, near Harrogate, is looking to raise awareness of epilepsy by crowd-funding a music video.
Simon Batchelor is married with two children, Ralph and George.
George was just 6 weeks old when they noticed his first seizure, at the time they were just packing up to come home from their first holiday with him.
George is now 11-years-old and has been to St Thomas’s, Great Ormond Street, hospitals in Liverpool and Leeds,. He has had multiple EEGs and tried many treatments.
He used to have a walking frame and learnt to stand up when he was 10, he doesn’t talk but can now climb the stairs.
Simon Batchelor said:
I used to think epilepsy was all about flashing lights and thrashing on the floor till George came along.
Now I know it can be far more subtle and there are over 40 types of epilepsy.
It can all be very tying though, holidays can be hard work, as can all the personal care.
George goes to Springwater school in Starbeck.
Simon Batchelor said:
It can be described as an electrical storm in the brain, when the wires get crossed.
The person can temporarily loose consciousness, apparently it’s as if you’ve just run a marathon, so I’m told.
They used to exhaust him so much he would go to bed for the rest of the day.
He has a Vagus Nerve Stimulator implant which helps his recovery times.
Seizures changes his mood and he can get very very agitated or be laughing hysterically for hours on end – all seizure activity.
But other people would think he was just being strange
Simon is now looking to raise £800 to Help fund an epilepsy awareness video, which will in turn generate research funding for Epilepsy Research UK.
The video will help raise people’s awareness of the condition, something that he feels is very limited with most people.
The soundtrack has already been written and the video will help show the how epilepsy affects individuals and families daily, without us even realising it.
Please see https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/TheGardenWhistler if you can help.