The Best Librarian On The Disc
The husband-shape and I are now back on Roundworld, after having fun at the Discworld Convention. Truly, it’s wonderful to escape the real world every couple of years and catch up with old friends whilst meeting new ones. The Discworld Convention is probably the only Convention in the world where you can have your photograph taken with Death, talk to Offler (the Crocodile God) and be wished good morning by a Golem – and nobody finds anything unusual in that at all. In fact, at a Discworld Convention, the kids are usually more grown-up than the grown-ups!
Among other guests, Convention-goers get to meet and chat with Stephen Briggs and Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE. Stephen is a very nice chap with a dry wit, and Terry is a sweetheart – although he now needs quite a large entourage to make certain that he gets to where he needs to be and he isn’t always in the mood for socialising. Early Onset Alzheimers is a truly horrible thing.
Of course, there are things to consider when you’re attending such a frenetic event and you have Epilepsy and are not used to a great deal of activity:
1: Chances are high that the excitement will cause you to have a seizure
2: If you overdo things when you’re mostly sofa-bound, throwing your stick on the closest chair and dancing the night away will cause you to be quite sick later on
3: If you have weak coordination/suffer abscence seizures, you are guaranteed to trip and hurt yourself at least once
All three of these things happened to me over the course of the weekend. Friday night found me in a small room being injected through a canula with valium by paramedics because I’d gone into Status Epilepticus whilst waiting for the lift. On Saturday I overdid it, dancing at the Hedgehog Party, and was violently unwell on returning to our room. This morning I blanked out whilst we were loading up the car to return home, didn’t raise my foot enough to get up the kerb and fell headlong – unable to save myself and with all my weight on my knees.
Did I let any of this spoil the Convention for me?
DID I HECK!
This is my life, and I would like to live it thank you very much! I know my limits; I also know that I am stubborn and that I will often go beyond the boundaries placed on me by my condition – but I am willing to pay the price when it’s not something I’m doing all the time. Now and then is just fine by me.
I sang along to Buffy – Once More With Feeling with hundreds of other Convention-goers. I danced the night away at the Hedgehog Party, wearing my “Jo Grant” gogo boots and playing my friend Andrew’s inflatable guitar. I swam with my husband and we were probably the biggest kids in the pool, having the biggest laugh out of everybody in the water. We behaved like love-struck newly-weds – which we are - and the mishaps in between all the fun don’t matter.
I have a bruise on my back from the seizure, and my knees are smashed in from the fall. All that means is that I went out and actually did something, possibly (well okay – definitely) overdid it and was too stubborn for my own good… and I had fun.
Yes. You can still have fun while being a person with Epilepsy. Don’t let it hold you back – just learn your limits. I’m afraid you will need to learn them the hard way, but you will get there in the end and it really isn’t as restrictive as a newly-diagnosed person might believe.
I shall be back when my knees have recovered, when I have gone through what us Pratchett fans like to call Shiny People Withdrawal Symptom and when I have taken photographs of all of my lovely Convention stash that I didn’t know I needed until I saw it. For the time being, I have more Nasturtium “capers” ready for brining, so I shall be off to do that.
Unfortunately I returned home to so much email alerting me to various blog posts and other things that I am never going to get through all of it! With that in mind, I’d appreciate it if you could drop me a comment letting me know what you’ve been up to whilst I’ve been “Off-World”!
Brilliant post, Gemma, even though sometimes I had no idea what you were talking about! xxx
I have no idea why I’m suddenly having to approve your comments either! I need to check that WP didn’t do something to my settings while I was away.
But thank you; I do hope this post shows other people with my condition that you mustn’t let it stop you from living as normal a life as possible. So a few “oopsies” happened – they do and even people who don’t have Epilepsy have them
I hope you got some pics to share as you know I am so jealous
We got some of our own, I’m taking some off the website (I just want to fold the swimming pool up and put it in my pocket to bring home with me) and one of my friends is emailing some that she took of me with husband-shape and Death
If i say I hate you right now you know its only because I want to meet Death!!!!! LOL
I think this guy has been cosplaying Death for years! He’s about my height, but his costume is about 8ft and the skull has blue eyes that glow! I can’t wait for my friend to email me the photo!
I also need to get a picture of my new laptop/sewing/Really Useful bag, which is imprinted with “Ankh-Morpork Guild Of Seamstresses – Where The Customer Comes First”. I love sewing, get the in-joke (obviously) and couldn’t leave it languishing at the stall! I also have an Igor piggy with two left feet, one eye and the hind legs of… well, actually I don’t know – but he was begging me to buy him
you are loving teasing me admit it! I should have given you my address that way I might have at least gotten a post card
The only postcards that the hotel sell are of pictures of the hideous ugly city. You wouldn’t want one and you can trust me on this – I lived there for a while!
Email me your address anyway; then I can send you the pictures that are worth seeing once I have them
I’m happy that you had a great albeit eventful time. Take care and I hope you take some time to recover from your fun.
Thank you sweetheart; I have a hospital appointment tomorrow, but that’s not until late afternoon so I get a nice long lie-in with some painkillers
Dear Missus Tribble, you are an inspiration! I’m so glad you could have fun in spite of your difficulties. Warm wishes to you both!
Thanks Naomi – you would love it if you could be there, I promise. So many amazing outfits!
Go you! You only get one go at this after all, so may as well enjoy it while you can. Sounds like terrific fun.
It’s brilliant fun! It would be nice if things didn’t happen to me, but there’s no sense in dwelling on the unavoidable!
I’ve never heard of disc world or that convention. Gee you’ve been busy
You sound so well, so wonderfully well.
Have your photo taken with Death??
How frightening (to me) it would be to witness someone have a seizure. I just wouldn’t know what to do. You smashed your knees? Also, I didn’t know being too busy/having too much fun could cause one. You’re having me learn!
Cute how you call your husband, ‘husband-shape’. You really DO sound like dizzy happy newlyweds
If you look up Terry Pratchett on Wikipedia you’ll learn a lot more, and reading any of his Discworld series will get you hooked!
I need to get those photos on my blog at some point – I’m still waiting for a few from friends. I think you’ll recognise me dressed as Jo Grant though
Yes, any kind of sensory overload can cause a seizure – not the most pleasant way to end an evening.
I still had fun though