E.D.I Blogs (Part.3) My Daughter’s War With Epilepsy

I am the proud Dad of six (!) wonderfully intelligent, charismatic, life-loving children, all with their own minds and personalities. After my first four, I foolishly believed I had this parenting thing in the smash. I mean, what? You feed em, clothe em , love em and it’s all good! Sure they may catch a cold, or fall and hurt themselves. Or maybe even get into a fight at school and get suspended a couple times, but other than that, this is a breeze. “I’m the world’s Best Dad!”… Febuary 14th 2009 changed not only my false sense of confidence, but my entire life and the lives of the people who love Melah Simone. That’s the day my youngest daughter had her first seizure. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It snowed the night before. In Georgia that is a rear occurrence, so my kids were super excited and couldn’t wait to get out and throw some snowballs and whatnot. We ended up playing in the snow for a couple of hours. Melah’s little nose was red and running, but no signs of what was brewing underneath. I had volunteered to play a small part in a local play about at-risk youth, and had two shows to do that day. I did the first one and had a three hour break before the night show, so I decided to go home and kick-it for a few. I was up stairs in my house and my other children, plus my niece were downstairs playing. I heard a loud thud, assumed it was the kids ruff-housing. What followed was my oldest daughter repeating “dad! Dad! DAD!!!” I raced down the steps to find Melah, on the floor, shaking and her eyes rolling in her head. She was biting her tongue and unresponsive to my voice. Terror took over as I realized she was having a seizure. My kids called 911. Nzingha, who was 15 at the time, had a friend who had seizures and knew what to do until the paramedics arrived.

Doctors initially thought she may have had the seizure due to a sudden rise in body temp. “Maybe she had played in the snow too much that day and caught a cold” I thought. I felt extremly guilty, until the second and third ones. They were equally horrific and shocking. The thing about seizures is you never know when there coming. One minute she’s her normal bossy, demanding self, the next she’s out of it and we’re hoping she doesn’t chew her tongue up or choke to death. My daughter’s type of seizure is called “tonic-clonic”. They occur when all the neurons in the brain suddenly discharge. Before she was diagnosed epileptic, doctors told us that some small children have seizures until the age of six and then they “out-grow” them. A child must have 10 seizures before they can be officially diagnosed epileptic, Melah surpassed that number this summer after going nine months without one. Doctors and her neurologist prescribed her some anti-seizure medicine to hopefully keep them under control. Because she is continuing to grow, her body began to require a larger dose of the meds. Doctors figured that out after she had an out-break over the long, hot summer. Numerous visits to the emergency room and stays in ICU had us on pins and needles.

I’m not a huge fan of the meds she takes. They effect the kidneys, liver and her overall day to day routine. She must take them twice a day, five different kinds at that! The body or mind, depending on who you ask, becomes dependent on them. So any variation can result in another spike in seizure activity. She has what we call “drops” where she will just have a sudden lost of muscle strength and fall or her head will drop back momentarily. She doesn’t understand what is happening and becomes quite frustrated with it. There are good days and not so good days. It’s a constant battle. Western medicine tends to focus more on medicating the problem instead if finding the source and treating it naturally. That’s what I’m on. I don’t understand the method of treating a problem with meds that create other health problems! We’ve all seen the commercials that go “…side effects include dizziness, nausea, headaches, blindness, deafness, or even death..” WTF! The poor guy only wanted to get an erection! Nah. My kid will not be used as an guinea pig, so 20years later they can do a study and realize the meds Melah was taking caused lord knows what.

Melah will begin seeing a holistic physician soon and we are gonna beat this thing. I have had to change not only her diet, but the diets of my other children as well as my self. Sugar and process foods are the enemy in my house now and they should be in yours too. We are, not even secretly, being poisoned and don’t even know it. The foods we eat everyday slowly kills us. Population control is a real thing. BE DILLIGENT AND MINDFULL OF WHAT YOU FEED YOUR KIDS AND YOURSELF! They (doctors) still haven’t pinned down the exact reason Melah is the way she is, but through research, I’ve found that food could be the root cause of her condition. For now we take one day at a time, hopeful for the best but prepared for the worst

SALUTE.
P.S. Imma get wit yall nxt go round, ya boy bout to hit this Watch The Throne concert tonite. Atlanta is the first stop, so this should be interesting at the very least! I will be tweeting through out the show so follow me @TheRealEDIDON if you wanna get some firsthand updates on the “show”.