December 12, 2025 at 12 noon

As part of our Wellness Program, NEREG and MAESC hosts an on-line epilepsy and seizure-themed Book Club every 4 months! Everyone in the group reads the book on their own, then “meets” online to talk about it: impressions, opinions, critiques. Books are selected based on their relevance to epilepsy, such as books that have a fictional or non-fictional character with epilepsy or that is written by a person living with epilepsy. The group will vote on the upcoming books to read.

The book that has been selected for December is Racing Uphill: Confronting a life with epilepsy by Stacia Kalinoski. Special treat: the author, Stacia Kalinoski, may be joining the book club on the day we meet!

This is a synopsis about the book:

The candid, inspiring story of a woman’s experience with a chronic, unpredictable neurological condition

When twenty-nine-year-old reporter Stacia Kalinoski regained consciousness on a couch at the TV station where she worked, she assumed that she’d had another seizure. But the electrical storm that had just torn through her brain was more destructive than she could have imagined, and the broadcast journalism career she loved swiftly came to an end. Forced to confront the reality of her medical condition, Kalinoski made the risky decision to undergo brain surgery, targeting the epilepsy that was ravaging her life.

In Racing Uphill, Kalinoski describes the seizures that occurred while she was running, which led to her pursuit of an uncertain cure. Rallying the grit she developed as an athlete and engaging the research and reporting skills she acquired as a journalist, she gives us a rare inside look at the ways epilepsy can change a life. Moving beyond her own personal experience, Kalinoski interviews prominent epileptologists to understand how seizures can spread, steal memories, and create strange behaviors and mood disorders. She seamlessly joins what she learned from her research with her own story, offering valuable insight into the experience of grappling with a relentless neurological disease.

The vivid auras that preceded seizures and the damage that followed; the toll of her epilepsy on her family and loved ones; the extraordinary determination her reckoning required—these are all part of Kalinoski’s story of adversity, denial, acceptance, and resilience. In sharing the remarkable opportunity that epilepsy presented for her courage and growth, Stacia Kalinoski speaks to anyone facing an uphill battle and offers inspiration for taking control of one’s own health.

https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517917463/racing-uphill/

To register for our book club, email lmyers@epilepsygroup.com