Maria

In the last post, I mentioned my youngest sister. Maria was born December of 2000 just shortly before Christmas. Watching the home movies of that Christmas pretty entertaining to me. Maria is just brand new and we were trying to keep it quiet. You can see Alyssa getting frustrated having to say "Mom" and "Dad" multiple times for their attention. In the background you can see me focused on opening those presents. I already went through this new baby drill.

Maria's post is going to be lengthy and is going to bounce around a bit covering various years, so bear with me.

I went to college. I was a junior stepping in to the grown up world of having an apartment. I lived just a little less than two hours away. I got a call. Maria was 7. Can you guess what happened?

Here's a more detailed version of the phone call from my mom:

My mom was waiting for the bus, it was running late and she had this feeling that something had happened. The bus pulled up and all the kids were waving to my mom and the driver stopped the bus and met her at the door. She told my mom that something happened to her. She got on the bus and the driver said "I think she had a seizure or something, I found her in her seat not talking but awake and not aware of what happened."

Maria had lost her bladder and had bit her tongue. Mom got her in the car, took her home, and called Dr. Bean (ya a real doctor) the pediatrician. My mom told her that it looks like Maria had a grand mal seizure and they scheduled her EEG right away because of the family history (Our body count now included my Aunt Marg, some distant cousin, Me, Alyssa, and our cousin Olivia).

Maria was wiped out. She had a massive headache and stayed in bed the rest of the day. Everything hurt. When mom told our dad, his response was "F**k."

All of Maria's friends from the bus and their moms started asking if she was okay. Her friends thought she had died. People knew about my epilepsy (I don't know how I didn't talk to these people). My mom told them more about what happened and when Maria woke up the kids came over to see her and see that she wasn't dead.

She stayed home from school for about a week. She just hurt. Her head hurt, her tongue hurt, and the EEG was coming up.

When I got the call I was so upset I just cried and kept saying "No! No!! NO!!!" It was all I could say. I was sick to my stomach the whole night just picturing what would lie ahead for her. Then I decided I should be optimistic and repeated in my head "it's just gonna be this one and then she'll be fine." That was her first.

Another day. The second call came.

She had another one at school. She remembered being in choir class and the next thing she knew her friend was walking with her down to the office. Paramedics checked her over in the nurses' office to make sure she was okay. My mom picked her up and took her home. Another call to the doctor and after that one she was diagnosed with epilepsy. They started her on Depakote.


This call did it. It broke me. I knew there was only one more thing I could do. It was time for a conversation with the big guy upstairs. We hadn't talked for a while but for that little girl I love so damn much, you go knock on that door. I  got down on my knees bawling. I looked up and had a talk. I told God that every seizure she would have to put them on me. Not just a few put them ALL on me. I just want her to have a normal life possible. I didn't want anything to happen to her. Let the inconvenience of having to take medication the worse part of having epilepsy for her.

Surprisingly, my prayer was answered (don't worry I'm not going all religious on ya) and that was the beginning of the change in my epilepsy. I wouldn't take it back or change it. She is fully controlled and has not had another grandmal and has only had absent seizures when the doctor tried taking her off of her medicine.

So now we're up to three kids. Three have had a seizure of some sort. What in the world could be next?

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