Sunday, March 27, 2016

Personal Purple Day

I first heard of Purple Day for epilepsy awareness last year (2015). Basically, you wear purple to spread epilepsy awareness. It's huge on Twitter. My feed yesterday was full of epilepsy friends all wishing each other a seizure-free Purple Day.

Unfortunately, yesterday morning I had a pretty strong seizure, so I wasn't on social media for awhile to see all the love that was being spread around by patients, friends and family. In fact, I completely forgot to wear any purple. 

Well, yesterday, the day before Easter, we went out for pizza with Sara's family. Sara and I got out of the car to see that all of her family members were wearing purple. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence because I didn't think anyone else knew what Purple Day was except Sara and I. But, no... they wore purple to show support for epilepsy, more specifically, Sara and I. 

I sat pretty quiet during the dinner because I was still a little woozy from the morning seizure, in fact I wasn't 100% that I'd make it to the dinner. Instead, I fought through the pain to see her family, eat some good food, and have a few good laughs.

We did just that, and I'll never forget this year's Purple Day. Sara and I have been having one of the most difficult times in our lives... health, money, you name it. To see her family show support like they did yesterday made me fight back tears the whole night, even now it's getting me a little choked up.

This is what Purple Day is all about. Patients, friends and family all showing support for one another. It really is a beautiful thing.

So, this post is dedicated to the Arnas family. Thank you all so much for your kind gesture and show of support. It's exactly what I needed after yesterday's seizure. It might be as simple as putting on a piece of purple clothing, but to me, it meant the world. 

Tomorrow (Monday), I start another EEG at Northwestern, and I'll have a little less fear going into it because of this year's Purple Day. 

Joe, Terri, Erin, Elise, Grandma, Bob, Debbie, and Jessica... Thank you!

Dave Grohl - Times Like These

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