John (not his real name) is one of thousands of parents whose child has epilepsy. He knew early on that something was amiss but doctors never picked up on it, so he presumed his child was a "daydreamer and a bit of a messer".
"In retrospect I now realise that he was getting absences [ staring spells] as a child but he was not diagnosed until he had his first seizure in his late teens," he says.
His son has been on medication since he was diagnosed but the seizures continued, sometimes once a week with no warning.
"The problem was not knowing the triggers, so I would develop ideas about what I thought it could be and worried he was not taking his medication regularly, which can be a problem with young adults," he says.
The seizures were intermittent with long spells of no seizures, but in recent times they began to get more frequent.
"He had been seeing someone regularly and I was doing everything I thought I could, but it was getting worse and it got to the stage where I thought there must be someone I can talk to," he says.
In the past year John contacted Brainwave, the Irish Epilepsy Association, as he felt he had exhausted everything else.
"As soon as I spoke to them I felt hope for the first time in years. They suggested a course called Training for Success that they run in Sligo which is funded by Fás," he says.
Training for Success is a pre-employment training programme for people with epilepsy, run in partnership with the Institute of Technology, Sligo. Subjects include visual art, creative writing, epilepsy awareness, first aid, health and fitness and media studies.
John's son became involved with the course and John has enormous expectations that this will give him a new start in life. "Being able to talk to someone in Brainwave that understood has given me hope.The only thing I thought was why didn't I do this years ago?" he says.
Asked what advice he could offer parents in similar situations, John said being able to talk to someone who understands and appreciates the situation is the biggest comfort.
"A parent's greatest fear is, what will happen when I am not here for my child? Brainwave has a strong appreciation of all of this and parents should seek help. My son's seizures have decreased for the first time in years and I feel very positive for the future," he says.