Taking Epilepsy Awareness to the Casino

November: Time for Thanksgiving, one of the tightest presidential elections in history, and national Epilepsy Awareness Month. While much of the media is focused on Nevada for its close elections and swing-state status, I was drawn to Heather Vanus’s story, which highlights the need for Epilepsy Awareness Month.

Heather Vanus is a regular at the Nugget Casino in Reno-Sparks, which purports to be the best gaming facility in Northern Nevada. With dozens of specialty gaming tables, bingo games, Keno and slot machines, it’s huge. Ms. Vanus lives in Reno. She has seizures often enough that she has a service dog, Cherry, who is trained to alert Heather and those around her when she’s about to have a seizure. When I had uncontrollable seizures, I never resorted to using a service dog, but I find the concept fascinating.

There are different levels of epilepsy service dogs: Seizure alert dogs can detect pending seizures fifteen to 45 minutes before they occur, when they detect a specific scent in the person’s sweat or breath. Other service dogs—seizure response dogs—can’t necessarily detect the scent but they are trained to respond to their owners and others around them when they see their owner in the throes of a seizure.  Based on news story descriptions, whether Cherry is a response or an alert dog is murky, but I believe she is a seizure response dog.

During her multiple weekly visits to the Nugget Casino, Ms. Vanus always brought Cherry with her. “They know who we are. When we come in, they automatically bring me water for my dog,” she said. Ms. Vanus considers the Nugget a space where she felt safe and welcomed. This comfortable atmosphere was shattered last month when Ms. Vanus opted to go to the Nugget without Cherry, who had recently been spayed. Ms. Vanus felt Cherry needed some recuperation time, so she asked her fiancé to accompany her to the Nugget. When they arrived, a security guard approached them and demanded that they leave the premises. “Security told me that if [Cherry] stayed at home, then I should have stayed at home with her,” Vanus said, despite telling them that her fiancé would have been able to handle a potential medical emergency in Cherry’s absence. “They said you can either remove yourself, or you can leave in cuffs,” she recounted, incredulity marking her voice.

“Did that really just happen?” her fiancé asked. They left the casino.

Ms. Vanus said that not being able to see her friends at the Nugget has been “heartbreaking.” She’s asked for an apology and for the Nugget to educate their staff on how to handle others with medical dogs. The incident highlights the need for Epilepsy Awareness Month, as well as Ms. Vanus’s protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. When Ms. Vanus reported the incident to the local media, the Nugget Casino declined to comment but issued this statement: “The Nugget is fully committed to complying with all ADA requirements, and we welcome all guests with disabilities who use service animals…. We remain dedicated to offering an inclusive environment for all our guests.”

I am struck by the statement’s irony. If the Nugget is dedicated to offering an “inclusive environment” for all their guests, they wouldn’t have threatened to kick Ms. Vanus out the day she left her dog home. Ms. Vanus brought her fiancé and felt confident that if she had seizure while at the casino, he could handle the situation. While it’s great that Ms. Vanus has a service dog, and the Nugget complies with the law by allowing Cherry to join her, the Nugget’s choice to bar Ms. Vanus when Cherry wasn’t with her is an ADA violation. If they truly wanted to offer an inclusive environment, they would reach out to the Epilepsy Foundation of Nevada and offer a staff training on what epileptic seizures look like, and the best way to help somebody who is having one.

In addition to violating the ADA, the Nugget’s second guessing of Ms. Vanus’s decision to leave Cherry home is offensive. Ms. Vanus knows what her seizures are like and determined that her fiancé could handle the situation, if she had one. As somebody who had uncontrollable seizures for decades, I know how demoralizing it felt when others questioned my abilities to carry out basic life activities due to my epilepsy. Like Ms. Vanus, I was heartbroken when people–including those who truly cared about me–doubted I could do my job, take care of my children, or ride a bicycle.

I’ve been seizure-free for almost nine years now. Freedom from others’ judgement and doubts is just as liberating as freedom from the seizures, a journey I describe in my book, Seizing Control. Epilepsy is a somewhat murky condition. While a seizure is scary to have or to witness, a person who regularly has them usually knows how quickly they will recover, and how much support they need. These factors are determined by the seizures’ severity and can be more accurately assessed by a support person like Ms. Vanus’s fiancé than a support dog. This Epilepsy Awareness Month, I hope the Nugget issues Ms. Vanus the apology she’s seeking and then trains their staff members about seizures.