This is Kay's Story -

It is unknown why, but my mother discovered me having convulsions in my crib as an infant. As a child, I can remember functioning through the seizures yet if my mom was near, I would run to her and bury my face in her lap and say, “Mommy everything seems to look funny.” I would sense an aura and feel it but no one outside of me would know. I was okay in high school and handled the “Absence Seizures” but it made me somewhat shy. I was a good student. In college, I can’t remember the seizures affecting me. I went to Stephen’s College, a private women’s college, in Columbia, MO, studying Fashion Merchandising. I got excellent grades. After graduation, I did various jobs, mostly retail, in Omaha, Lincoln and Denver.

Mom and Dad thought I could manage the seizures like I had all my life. Dad lent me his pick-up and again I went across the centerline. I didn’t crash into anyone but went down into a field. I gave up driving. I lived in an apartment in the same town as my parents. Learning how to live a life without driving radically changed and redefined my lifestyle. In 1997, I moved to Fremont.

In my journey, I have done a lot of soul searching and building upon the early lessons learned in church. My experiences have strengthened by faith. Increasing my trust in God and the goodness of society. Frequently, Good Samaritan has come to my aide when I have collapsed from a seizure. I feel the need to pay it forward in society by doing humanitarian efforts for the greater good that includes volunteering for the American Red Cross Blood Drive and the Brain Injury Alliance of Nebraska.

Living with the effects of any kind of brain injury is hard. Like lavender, we would like to keep our disabilities in the shadows but having had these experiences, the quote, “Life is mostly froth and bubble. Two things stand like stone; kindness in another’s trouble, courage in your own.” Adam Lindsay Gordon seems to sum up the path through life that I have been on since I was an infant