by Marilyn Knowles Wilke

Created on: May 08, 2008

As an infant, I seemed to be a normal happy baby. I laughed and played normal until one night, at age two and a half, I awoke screaming for my mother. As soon as I screamed, I remember my body began to shake and even though I could see my mother standing over me, everything seemed like a bad dream. My leg was convulsing and I could feel someone putting something in my mouth. The next thing I recall is my older brother holding me in his arms, screaming. Then, everything went dark.

The next thing I knew, I was being driven by my daddy in his car to some strange place I did not recognize. All these strange people were grabbing me and putting me on a table. I was so frightened and I did not understand anything they were doing to me. I heard them say I had a disease, but I did not know what they called it until I was older. They said I had epilepsy. All I know is I remember hating those doctors and nurses because no one explained to me what they were doing. I thought they were going to kill me. They stuck wires in my hair with this sticky goop and one nurse even slapped me and told me to be still. I remembered seeing wires on television shocking people, so I thought I was going to die. My mother was no where to be seen. Neither was my daddy. I felt deserted.

When I finally arrived home, my mother was in tears. The doctors had also discovered that I had an incurable kidney disease, one that had already taken several children's lives. My life began to change drastically. My parents would not let anyone else take care of me very much. They threatened my five older siblings with a beating if any of them ever hurt me. Some of them began to resent me right away. I became spoiled and did not really want to be.

Even though my siblings resented me, I wish they would have felt what I was feeling. The fears that I had were phenomenal. I wanted to be normal like them. They would pick on me when no one was around and tell me what a brat I was. I did not want to be a brat. I was just so afraid. I had so many seizures and pain from my kidney disease. My side would hurt so bad and sometimes I would hide outside under the steps so my parents would not know and baby me. I cried to myself a lot and as I became older, I would hold in my tears so no one would know in school.

Sometimes when I had a seizure, my teacher would not believe me. Some of them were silent seizures and I would wet my pants and then the class would make fun and so would the teacher. She would make me sit there and

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