How Raycast played a key role in helping me manage my Epilepsy

How Raycast played a key role in my life, as someone with Epilepsy.

#personal

Introduction

For 11 or so years I was an un-diagnosed epileptic. I had my first seizure when I was 13, and I was diagnosed when I was 24 with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE). I had a lot of seizures in that time, and I was very lucky to have not had any serious injuries in that time.

But, after diagnosis there’s the consequences of my pre-diagnosis life, one of the major problems was, memory. I had a lot of memory problems throughout my life, and it was only after diagnosis that I realised that it was a symptom of my epilepsy, and it got gradually worse as my seizures increased and the lack of treatment continued.

After treatment, taking my medication daily for the rest of my life, I was able to get my seizures under control, but my memory was still a problem. I had to find ways to manage it, and one of the ways I did that was with Raycast.

Problems Raycast solves

Now, I’ll begin with what Raycast solves for me, excluding any relation to Epilepsy. Raycast is a perfect tool, at least for me. The workflow, extensions and features it provides are incredible. Having the ability to nearly instantly lauch any program I want, manage my individual windows, quit all applications with a few keyboard shortcuts, manage my Linear and GitHub issues, search for fonts, pick colours, and even install menu bar apps. It’s a tool that I use every day, and it’s a tool that I can’t live without and is a manditory install on any device.

How Raycast helps me manage my Epilepsy

There’s a few ways that Raycast helps me manage my Epilepsy. As I mentioned in the first section, memory is a big problem for me. I mean, something said 30 seconds ago can be forgotten in an instant. Some days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast and sometimes I can’t remember how I drove from A to B.

So, how does it help me. Well, lets go through a list of features:

  • Clipboard History: I can’t remember what I copied 5 minutes ago, especially since I copy code, or an image and I can’t remember where I got it from, Clipboard history contains metadata for the location of the copied item, and I can easily find it.
  • Notes: Is increadibly useful, especially Raycast Notes 2.0. Being able to instantly write notes during meetings, conversations. I can’t remember how many times I’ve left a meeting and forgetting everything that was discussed.
  • Reminders: 100% a life saver, my ability to remember to take my medication was horrible, I’m lucky the morning or night dosage I’ve missed hasn’t caused me to have a seizure, but when I’m on my machine, being able to set a reminder to take my medication is surely a vital feature.

Conclusion

The features mentioned play a key role in my life, and no doubt its a vital tool for a lot of other people. But, managing my medication through reminders, supporting my memory problems through notes and clipboard history will forever be a key part in my day to day.

I also with to give a shoutout to the Raycast team for creating such a great tool. Also a special shoutout to Pedro Duarte and Bruno for creating amazing YouTube videos over at their channel Raycast.

Further notes

I do use Apple Health to track my medication, but my phone isn’t always nearby, so a reminder set through Raycast is sorta like a second reminder :)

Apple Notes is okay, but the UI, shortcuts, and minimum window size is a pain for me.

I am currently writing an extension to encompass a list of features to help manage epilepsy, but it’s still in the early stages.