Keto Stories

Megan’s Story

November 26, 1988, Thanksgiving Day Megan Hardgrave and her parents boarded an airplane bound for more than 2000 miles away from home –Texas to Baltimore, Maryland. When Megan was 10 years old, she made a tough commitment of 2 years to a medical diet—the Ketogenic Diet. She had her first seizure as a toddler at age 2 ½ years according to her mother, Kay. She continued to have them for 8 more years. Megan’s parents, Kay and David, after doing lots of research and with prayful consideration, wrote a heartfelt letter about Megan to Dr. John Freeman at Johns Hopkins. Upon thinking that they were facing hemispherectomy surgery as a possible solution, Megan was taken to the EEG video monitoring room where she was observed and wired up to a big camera that followed her everywhere. This lasted for three days. After these three days, Dr. Freeman and team decided that she was not a candidate for hemispherectomy. He called her into a big conference room and said “Megan, how would you like not to have surgery… how would you like to get off your medications and get rid of seizures?” Megan replied “Great” Dr. Freeman asked her “How tough are you?” She said “pretty tough” (Up to that time the Ketogenic Diet had not been tried on children age 10 an up. Since 1988 Megan’s story has been able to offer hope to other teenagers and their families and many have tried the diet) He explained that it would be a very hard diet to stay on. And that I would have to be strong and determined to say “no “ to my friends when they offered me anything that had sugar in it like candy or other items such as breads ect… Megan thought, ”You don’t need that scary surgery and need to have the opportunity for a normal life”, and then stuck out her right hand and shook Dr. Freeman’s hand saying “You’ve got yourself a Texas Deal” We stayed a week in total after our deal and I learned certain details about the Diet from Mrs. Millie Kelly the capable nutrition dietitian. Afterwards we flew back to Texas and settled into our family routine again and began the diet in earnest. As Dr. Freeman said many years later to me, “Every time I offer a kid The Diet, I think of you and our Texas deal” In 2009, Megan will celebrate 20 years seizures free because of the Keto Diet that worked in a fantastic way! Megan now 31 years old lives in Carrollton, Texas and enjoys: writing, cooking, managing her company Collectible Profiles Inc. She reads several books a week, and is an avid movie fan.