Handicapped Drivers

The dreaded time is upon me. . . .I'll be starting the process this summer by which my soon-to-be 16 year old daughter will be learning how to drive a car! I'll be taking her to empty parking lots and getting her going on a few things before formal driver ed classes start in the fall for her, but here's my dilemma:

She's blind in her left eye and has epilepsy. Two strikes already, but I know people with handicaps drive all the time and just make adjustments.

My daughter has been seizure free for over a year now, which is good, but I'm wondering if anyone out there has had any experience with a handicapped teen driver or a handicapped driver in general? I'm sure I'll have to get a back-up camera installed in whatever car she'll drive, and maybe some extra mirrors, but if anyone has any suggestions or pointers--post 'em here; I'll take all the advice I can get for this scary time coming up!

Hyacinth Girl, the only advice I can give you is to satisfy yourself that your daughter has the skills to be behind the wheel. If you find yourself screaming, "LOOK OUT FOR THAT TRUCK!" too often, maybe her vision is an issue. Hopefully her doctor can give you more reassurance about her seizures. Or lack thereof (knocking on wood with crossed fingers).

My daughter is on two different anti-seizure meds, and stiff doses to boot. I know that in Massachusetts where we are, you have to be event-free for 6 months before you can either start driving or resume driving, and we do fall into that category.

It took almost 2 years and many ambulance rides to the Emergency Room, to get her under control, but with the mix she's on now, she's been pretty much back to pre-epilepsy normal. (This all started when the girl hormones kicked in during puberty. . . )

She's already said that she won't feel comfortable driving at night, for lack of vision, so that just leaves the day times for me to bite my nails in worry! LOL Also, too, my daughter will be able to come off the meds in a year, provided a repeat EEG is normal, but she is so petrified of having another seizure, that she wants to stay on them until she's into college.

I don't blame her at all, though--she had the really bad grand-mals like you see in the movies and they were scary as hell, so if the meds are working and she wants to remain on them regardless, then that might work to our advantage, timing-wise so she gets more comfortable driving, more experience, and hopefully goes for a good long time without any issue.

The eye-thing--that will probably be the worst part to start, with training her how to look around so she can see where the rest of us can and she can't.

I can empathize with what you went through. My mother had seizures for a number of years probably as the result of surgery she had years before. If I recall correctly, the meds they had her on (Dilantin) had worse side effects than the seizures.

alan smithee wrote:I can empathize with what you went through. My mother had seizures for a number of years probably as the result of surgery she had years before. If I recall correctly, the meds they had her on (Dilantin) had worse side effects than the seizures.

My daughter is on Keppra and Lamotrigine--two of the newer drugs, and it was hit or miss, trying to find the right meds, dose and combination. We tried Trileptal too, and that had some nasty side effects and changed her whole personality to the point where she was ready for a psychotherapist, so we stopped that one in a hurry, but yeah--some of those drugs are worse than the disease itself.