March 27, 2015 at 3:50 p.m.
Central Intermediate School recognizes epilepsy awareness with Purple Day
Central Intermediate School recognizes epilepsy awareness with Purple Day
By Kayla Thomason-
Beth Knapp of Rhinelander, whose daughter Emma has epilepsy, suggested Central Intermediate School recognize Purple Day. Knapp has been working to raise awareness of epilepsy since her daughter was a baby.
Emma was 18 months old when she started having absence seizures - or "blanking out." At 21 months old she was officially diagnosed with tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizures.
Knapp worked with another local mother, Lynne Wakely, to bring Purple Day to Central. Wakely organized Purple Day events at Rhinelander High School when her son, who has an acute form of Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, was studying there.
"I'm just trying to do as much as I can to get the word out about epilepsy because it's not a scary thing but people think it is," Knapp said.
The Knapps sold bracelets and pencils during the lunch hour to raise money for an epilepsy foundation. Students who signed a card about teaching others about epilepsy were given purple ribbons.
"All the money that we get for selling those (bracelets and pencils is) going to go back to the epilepsy foundation in Stevens Point and that serves our whole northern part of Wisconsin," Knapp said. "I had a little boy yesterday, he bought one bracelet, so that's $1, he gave me $4 he's like 'the rest of it's a tip. It just warms my heart to know that there's kids that are that giving out there."
During the week Emma's teacher, Theresa Werner, taught the children facts about epilepsy.
"The students were very surprised to learn that having epilepsy does not mean that you are not able to partake in sports and activities throughout the regular school day," Werner said. "Before they met Emma they were unsure and unaware that epilepsy comes with different types and varying degrees of seizures, and that not all seizures include being down on the ground, convulsing and/or unconscious."
Knapp also presented information to her daughter's class about Emma's seizures.
"People always used to say like 'if you have a seizure hold the tongue,' and that's not possible. It's not humanly possible to swallow your tongue," Knapp told the class. "Anybody can have a seizure some time in their life."
People must suffer multiple seizures to be diagnosed as epileptic, according to Knapp.
She also explained to the children what they should do if see someone having a seizure.
"If you're right by somebody - using my daughter for example - when she goes into a seizure what we do is we get her comfortably to the ground - sometimes that's not possible people will just fall - but you get them to the ground, you lay them on their side," she said.
Knapp stressed that the person who is having a seizure should be placed on their side because they may vomit during the episode and could aspirate.
"Most of the facts on epilepsy surprised the students because this is such a new topic to them," Werner said. "Throughout our discussions and learning, they were very interested in learning what they should do if they come across someone at home or school having a seizure. Mrs. Knapp did a wonderful and very thorough job explaining and modeling how to make sure you get the person on their side and most importantly watch their head so they do not hurt themselves even more so when convulsing."
The students also learned that they should never put a hand or an object in the mouth of a person who is having a seizure as it could cause injury, according to Werner.
Knapp told students to time the seizure because it's important information for medical personnel.
"With Emma we have special medicines which we call the 'emergency medicines' that we have to administer at three minutes," she said.
If those don't work right away they call 9-1-1.
"The awesome part of Emma right now is she's been seizure-free for six months which is amazing because in nine years we've never gotten this far," Knapp said.
She said she was pleased the school and the children were receptive to learning more about epilepsy.
"Mrs. Werner was wonderful at allowing us the time to explain things," she added.
Emma said she thought Purple Day was cool and her classmates asked good questions.
"They had more questions than I thought," Emma said.
Knapp hopes that the students will be prepared should they witness an episode.
"You'll never get used to seeing somebody in a seizure, but people just need to know that if they see somebody don't run from them, help them," she said.
Central Intermediate School's principal, Tim Howell, was pleased with the number of people that participated in Purple Day.
"I think (Purple Day is) wonderful," Howell said. "We actually had a fire drill this morning and I commented to a couple teachers as they were going by that we probably have two-thirds of the students wearing purple and probably more than that of the staff.
"I like to see the kids talking about (Purple Day)," he added. "We've been doing announcements every morning and it talks about dispelling myths about epilepsy."
Some of the myths that were cleared up for the students include that epilepsy is not contagious and it doesn't affect someone's cognitive ability.
"I think it's great that this parent was able to bring (Purple Day) to our building," Howell said.
Students at Central Intermediate were happy to support their classmate.
"Central Intermediate students were 100 percent supportive of Emma, and were thrilled to be a part of making 'Purple Day' a recognized event at our school and in the community," Werner said.
Kayla Breese may be reached at [email protected].
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