One

     She is one year seizure free! Our daughter started having seizures at eighteen months of age. Other than a two year break between the ages of five and seven and again between the ages of eleven and thirteen, epilepsy has been a large part of her life. Our daughter experienced two-thirds of her seizures during her five years at high school. She had her last seizure (and her last trip to the emergency ward) on February 2, 2017. Thankfully she only broke her hand and nose, split her lip and lost a front tooth.
     What does it mean to our daughter to be one year seizure free? First and foremost, she has less fear that she will have a injury-causing seizure in an unsafe public place. It means her being able to be home alone from time to time. She loves that!  It also makes her feel that she can be like other people her age, not to mention not having to take her mother along to the movies or anywhere for that matter, nice as she is!?
     For us, it means the possibility that she can one day go without antiepileptic medications, the opportunity for her to work or go to school without always being accompanied and of course, hope for a seizure free adult life, a life concentrated on enjoying living rather than fearing injury or even death.
     Whether our daughter is seizure free due to less stress in her life, the medications finally working, outgrowing her seizures or the answer to prayer, here it is. This reprieve from epilepsy for a year has been my most cherished wish, my most fervent prayer and I am sure that that is true for my husband and both our daughters and other family as well. If you too helped Hayley get here, then we thank you. We thank God and we thank you....