Gabby Salas:
"I've been epileptic basically my whole life. It all started because of an ear infection that I had as a toddler. I developed a high fever and it triggered my convulsions. As a kid I only had absence seizures and after a while they stopped, but the auras continued. My neurologist back then thought that I was cured so they took me off my meds. I was doing good until i turned 16 and i had my first tonic clonic seizure in class (I think it happened because of the hormonal changes a girl goes through in puberty). Very few people knew about my condition at that time, so you can imagine everyone being scared. They called 911 and as soon as I was released, I remember not wanting to go back to school because I was afraid to face the people that had seen me like that and i knew it was time to give them an explanation of what had happened that day.
I decided to wear this shirt to raise awareness and was able to talk about my condition at school (see photo below). To my surprise, people were more supportive than ever and I even answered some myths such as, "is it true that you can swallow your tongue? " or "do bright lights affect you?"
That day I learned that people fear what they dont know, so i made it my duty to try to educate people about epilepsy so they are not afraid to lend a helping hand if they ever get to see an individual seizing.
As of now, my last one happened on March of this year it was worse than the others because my meds werent doing its job so i got them switched to Levex 500mg & Tegretol 200 mg. I was hospitalized for a week. We are all little fighters and I've learned that giving up is not an option no matter how bad we have it, we must keep fighting and always try to have a positive attitude."
