SCHOOL discos are a time when teenagers meet up with friends, dance and have fun but for Orange man Mark Brooking’s daughter Lana, one school disco changed her life.
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Lana Brooking was dancing with her friends to the top-40 hits and basking in the strobe lights when she collapsed on the floor and began to fit.
Mr Brooking said it was a terrifying time for the family who knew little about epilepsy.
“It was pretty devastating really,” Mr Brooking said.
But two years later, more bad news hit the family when Lana’s sister Gemma was diagnosed with the same condition.
Instead of going to parties to meet boys, dance and enjoy being a teenager, the girls had to start experimenting with medication, alter their diets and found it hard to deal with the concept that at any moment in time they could have a relapse.
“It was pretty hard, especially for my eldest, who had a fit driving recently,” Mr Brooking said.
Ms Brooking has since handed in her licence.
The women are now in their early 20s and epilepsy is still a part of their lives but with two children yet to turn 16, Mr Brooking is praying his younger ones do not carry the same gene.
Mr Brooking, who runs Brooko’s Cuisine at The Victoria Hotel, is holding a trivia night to raise funds and awareness of the condition.
He said his girls found it hard to cope with the stigma surrounding epilepsy.
“A lot of people don’t know what to do and try to pin people down but you shouldn’t do that, you could hurt them,” he said.
If possible, people should try and place a pillow under the head of the patient, attempt to move them onto their side and call an ambulance.
Mr Brooking is hoping to fill the 60-people capacity restaurant and raise $1000 for the Epilepsy Foundation, partly by donating $5 from every dinner purchased on March 26.
He is asking businesses in town to become involved and donate a prize for raffles to be held on the night.
Dinner begins at 6.30pm. Call 0447153708 to book a table.