The Rocky Road I've traveled

I was 12 years old and in middle school when I was diagnosed with Epilepsy. It not only happened out of the blue; but, it changed my life forever in many ways. It changed how I viewed life, how I lead my life along with my perspective on life. Me, my parents, sister and family had no idea why it happened. The result was a search beginning on figuring things out as far as what the cause was in addition to what medication could prevent more seizures. The difficult part was not knowing where to look much less where to begin. In fact, we were unsure on how to proceed with anything because of not knowing about seizures or Epilepsy. With that came Neurologist appointments as well as looking at the facts of what we had at the time. I had headaches for a while. To further add, they had become increasingly bad. We knew it may partially be due to hereditary on my mothers side. As it turns out, that part was right on point. We found that complex migraines were the cause of the seizures. The flipside of that was what were the cause of the complex migraines. Every solution had a different path to go down afterward. The cause of my complex migraines could be from stress of some kind, bright lights or even possibly traumatic events. My mothers death was quite a bit of stress. More than any kid my age (13 at the time of her death) experienced. The knowledge I gained from doing research has better helped me in teaching others. I did not know anything myself about seizures or Epilepy. It resulted in not knowing how to answer questions that were asked. Doing the research then spreading the knowledge I learned helped others understand me in addition to Epilepsy better. My mother died on September 1, 2002 after having a heart attack and brain stem stroke on the night of August 25, 2002. She was taken off life support against Doctors orders. She was then given six hours to live. She lived for six days. She diefied the doctors by breathing on her own for that long. Not only was there no brain activity; but, she was declared brain dead after an EEG showed there was no brain activity. The fact that she had no life support of any kind aside from IV fluid and food was remarkable among other things. According to even doctors, it was a miracle she lived for six days. To me, it was just my mom wanting everyone to say goodbye before she died. She wanted people to say their goodbye. The result was hundreds passing through everyday to say their tearful farwell. There were just as many that called to check in to see if there was progress either way. It was the funeral on September 5 that made just as much of an impact as the week in the hospital as well as her death. Even though First Baptist Church Inverness was a small church in the middle of town at the time, it was packed full of people. There were also people standing outside. For her. To say goodbye to a teacher, friend and mother. People mourned that week and still to this day. It has been the healingt that sometimes takes the longest. Her death changed me as a person. It changed how I view life, death as well as how I learn from it and able to help others. For me, it took years for the healing. It began very slowly. The process to understand what had happened and that my mom was never coming home. In spite of that, I had many friends that have helped along the way. They provided different perspectives of it and helped more that they know or will ever realize. Most of my friends and family helped in different ways whether it was a shoulder to cry on or a person to talk to. Most if not all did not fully understand because of it being such a unique situation. I had recently been diagnosed with Epilepsy then lost my mom a few months later. Not many people knew of something like that ever happening to a 13 year old girl. Regardless, they helped as much as they could. Being involved in sports was also a big help. I played softball, soccer, track and went to wrestling shows. Mom was a softball catcher while dad was a baseball pitcher. I had a lot of friends from different sports including moms basketball team she coached for six seasons. I have begun to look to the future and learned from everything that happened. Even though my future looks unsure at times, it is still as bright as anyone elses. Looking forward is my goal right now. Seeing the positives in everything is something that I have learned to do. I can learn from everything even though it is hard at times. The difference is that it is worth it in the long run. The road I have traveled over the last 11 years has not been an easy one. It has been filled with ups, downs, twists, turns and unexpected speed bumps. I have overcome obstacles I did not think I could overcome. I have overcome a lot and continue to do so.