The seizures started when she was only 8 months old, but that’s only the first ones we saw.  Those “episodes” were probably there long before that.  Looking back on things, there were times we called her name over and over before she would turn our way. There were periods of staring that we thought were so cute, “maybe she’s contemplating life, she’s so focused-oh she’s so smart.”  But, something was going on inside her precious little head, something not so ‘precious’.

That first seizure took us both by surprise.  There we were shopping as a family one Texas spring evening.  Boy and Girl were enjoying one of those grown-up, responsible, married couple activities with our little sweetie-pie.  She was sitting in the front basket of the grocery cart in her pink fuzzy one-piece pajama smiling and waving at people when they walked by.  People would smile back at her and comment about how cute she was; they just couldn’t help it, she really was a doll. Then, all of a sudden, her head started turning dramatically to the side, her eyes locked up into the corners, her face was blank, her lips started turning blue, her arms and legs stiffened up, we shouted for help and Boy took charge.  He swept her up in his arms and called for help. We thought she was choking on something, so he turned her upside down pounding her back to get out whatever she had swallowed.  A stranger grabbed me and brought me down another aisle and held my hands asking if I would pray with her.

By the time EMS arrived, she had regained color to her face and was fine, a little grumpy, but after all she had just been beaten on the back and turned upside down!  I rode with her to the hospital in the back of the ambulance. The doctors were at a loss for what had happened, until it happened again in the Emergency Room.  “OK, that’s a seizure, please wait in the hallway, we’ll take care of her”.  They quickly rushed us out and shut the door. Thus began the barrage of tests; spinal tap, Cat-Scan, blood work, MRI, EEG and various others. Five days later we were allowed to leave and we were told that she had probably suffered a febrile seizure and that it could happen again. Which it did, of course; Reality wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The doctors never said the word ‘Epilepsy’ to us and never mentioned that our daughter’s world was about to be turned upside-down and ours inside-out. They gave us the medications and hooked her up to machines but never told us “why” any of it was happening. They had the best intentions; after all, we weren’t the only parents they dealt with on a daily basis.  I’m sure they recognized the fear in our faces and the looks of anguish, but they were there to diagnose and treat our daughter, not to provide therapy for our depression, exhaustion, and confusion. Those things we would have to cope with on our own, just the two of us.

Lots of parents deal with this kind of stuff-right?  That’s what we told ourselves; and so we dressed her up in her Easter outfit and shared our little hospital stories with the family.  Everyone thought she looked beautiful despite everything she had gone through.  “She’ll be just fine, you wait and see, she’ll grow out of it and you’ll look back on this and laugh.  This happened to a friend of mine’s little girl and she never had another one.” They were just trying to console us, and we believed it-yep, she’ll grow out of it, it’s just a speed bump on the road to bliss. It will all be just fine. Boy, Girl and Baby would soon be on their way to happiness….

But, what we weren’t prepared for along the way were those horrifying seizures. They truly have a way of tearing your heart out each and every time.  There is never a way to get used to that look on your child’s face; “are they dying, are they breathing, when will it stop, oh my God please make it stop!”  For our precious Baby Girl, they just kept coming and our hearts kept breaking.  The convulsions and the medications were making our little girl literally crazy, and making us lose faith in ourselves and the world. What was happening and more importantly, Why?

Our baby was a mess, a little tornado spinning around non-stop.  She was up and running by the time she was ten months old.  We chased, we distracted, we ignored and we coped with all the wild behaviors and then we wondered, “is this normal, and if it is-why in the world do people have children?”  It was insane and we struggled to make it from one day to the next.  I was still working and Boy had finally graduated with that long-awaited degree.

Even though we both had college degrees, those big paychecks never came. It took the two of us working full-time just to make ends meet and that meant finding daycare. Anyone out there know what it feels like when three day care centers tell you they can’t keep your one year old because she was a threat to the staff and the other children?  It’s awful, it’s degrading, it’s humiliating, and it hurts!  We were just trying to get on with our lives and live out our dream, just trying to be a happy family, but Reality kept smacking us down reminding us that our destiny wasn’t to be what we had planned.  So, we temporarily consoled ourselves with the thought that maybe a higher power, maybe God, was at work and had a different dream for us, and we started to cling to that belief for sanity’s sake.

With the passage of time, many things were to change, and two older parents let go of the pain. 

Their child was different, her future unclear, these two wiser parents learned why they were here.

 God searched far and wide, took care who He’d chose, His angel needed love there was no time to lose.

 Two parents He found with courage and pride, He hoped they’d accept her through all kinds of times.

 For two special parents are all this angel needs, to show her the love to grow and succeed.