A Cause Close To My Heart

November is Epilepsy Awareness Month.

Epilepsy is something that haunts my life.

In 2004 my father-in-law (boyfriend's dad at the time) was working out of town.  When he didn't show up to work, his boss was worried because Shorty (aka John, aka Guss's dad) was a hard worker and always showed up early.  

At the time I was working as a Manager at my hometown's McDonald's.  We were about to hit transition, which means we were switching from Breakfast to Lunch, when I got a call.

Guss asked me if I could get done early, because his dad had died.  The moments after that I don't remember.  All of a sudden I was in the Managers office and then my mom was there to pick me up.  Fate also had my dad show up at the same time where he had been at an auction.  They took me to Guss's.  We literally sat there all day just doing nothing but crying or staring off into space.  Shorty's parents arrived and they were devastated.  Besides their son passing, many  years ago they had a daughter pass away from an illness.  So much pain for a family to bare.  

As an autopsy was preformed we learned the cause of death.  Guss's dad had been epileptic.  He had suffered a massive seizure and that was his cause of death.

Guss and his dad.

About 3 or 4 years ago my sister and parents came up to my town because we were to celebrate Easter.  The day of, we were at my Grandma's when my sister started going around in circles but was unresponsive to us telling her to stop.  My grandma literally tackled her to the ground where she started foaming at the mouth and her lips turned blue.  Surprisingly everyone but me kept their cool. My mom is a retired nurse and handled it perfectly.  After tests were done it was determined she had epilepsy.  First seizure at the age of 30.  

Truthfully Guss took it the hardest.  I remember him asking me "Why does it have to be that?".  Since then my sister has had 2 more incidents.  She is keeping up with her medicine and doing well but it is still a scary thing.  

This past year I was hoping to do a charity walk for Epilepsy.  However for some reason it didn't work out, but I plan to this coming year for sure.

So the point of this post is to share how this affected my life and bring awareness.  To find out more information please go here.  Thank you.