Happy Purple Day!

With my seizures fire within my speech pattern, so one sign that one has occurred is that I can't speak. 

Okay, so Purple Day isn't until the 26th but it was on my heart.What is Purple Day you ask?

Cassidy Megan (on left) created the idea of Purple Day in 2008, motivated by her own struggles with epilepsy. Cassidy's goal is to get people talking about epilepsy in an effort to dispel myths and inform those with seizures that they are not alone. The Epilepsy Association of Nova Scotia came on board in 2008 to help develop Cassidy's idea which is now known as the Purple Day for epilepsy campaign.

 I along with 3 million other Americans have epilepsy. That's 1 out of every 100 people. I have two types of seizures:

• Absence seizures: consist of brief episodes of staring for a period of 5-30 seconds. Impairment of awareness begins without warning and ends suddenly, leaving the person alert and attentive. You probably wouldn't even notice it was happening. A person may have 50 - 100 absence seizures a day. 
• Atonic Seizures: usually begin in childhood (lasting for less than 15 seconds) and are associated with an abrupt loss of muscle tone. 

A person may have 50 - 100 absence seizures a day. Without treatment, the seizures may interfere with learning. Absence seizures almost always begin in childhood (four to 14 years of age) and often resolve in late teenage years.

 With my seizures fire within my speech pattern, so one sign that one has occurred is that I can't speak. Sometimes it only lasts less than a minute other times hours or even days. In the beginning, We (family and friends) wrote notes back and forth but that got tiring. So, i brushed up on my sign language. My mom was the only one that really knew what I was trying to say but others tried to learn too. When I started dating Allen, we sat around for hours learning his letters to at least be able to spell things. Although I could hear him, he wanted to be able to practice speaking back.



 Everyday I wake up is a gift from God. Well not just for me but for all of us. The very breath that we breathe is a gift. I am often asked how do I do it? They are amazed how far I have come. At the age of 14, I was having brain surgery, at 15 battling epilepsy and at 23 graduating with a double major in Chemistry and Biology. WOW! It's called the power of prayer. For all the skeptics out there prayer works and I am proof. I don't know where I would be today without all my friends and family that were praying for my healing. 7 years ago I couldn't add or subtract in my head and now look.