Keto Stories
Stephen’s Story
Stephen was playing on this ‘Big Boy’ bed, so proud to be out of a Crib. My wife sat down next to him to listen as he chattered on about his room, his toys; anything that crossed his mind came across his lips with infectious excitement and enthusiasm. She then noticed his hand jerk and the side of his face twitch. Stephen’s speech became garbled and there was a look of confusion in his eyes. This first seizure at age 3 was to be the start of a heart-breaking 6-year journey that essentially ended 48 hours after he went onto the Ketogenic Diet. Had we ignored the high-browed medical ‘professionals’ 3 years earlier, we wouldn’t have been looking down the barrel of a radical surgical procedure to remove half of his brain now. Stephen wouldn’t have suffered the effects of creaping Retardation that changed him from something of a 3-yr old Math prodigy to a child who struggled to understand addition. He also would not have ‘Blank Slated’ at age 6 in First grade, regressing back to pre-Preschool, losing all memory of those first years (pictures of things he had done prior to Lamictal scared him because he could not remember). The list goes on, covering YEARS of torment that COULD have been prevented but for the stupidity of an egotistical handful of individuals who should give their Medical degrees back to the schools that issued them. Seeing Charlie’s story ‘…First Do No Harm’ was a turning point that resulted in Stephen being CURED of his Focal Seizures (at end, some 25 every minute according to the University of Virginia Medical Center). That was 9 wonderful years ago; it almost seems like a distant dream, like it happened to someone else. In those 9 years, Stephen has attended Public school for 5 years before transferring to a Christian school. He is a 17 year old Sophomore and school is not easy, but he’s making it. He is so proud to be escourting ‘…the prettiest girl in the 10th grade’ as a member of the Homecoming Court, and in a few days he will become an Eagle Scout. God has him where He wants him, and to Him goes all the Glory and Honor. Stephen bows his head at every meal to say ‘Thank you for our God, our Family and Friends…’, a grammatical mis-statement from those difficult years that remind us that there’s a relationship there that has sustained him, that he is truly thankful to have. My wife is a medical professional and this journey has made her that, just as it has made me an instructor at a local university. But more than that it has made us Parents who are humbled by our loving and remarkable Son’s unsinkable Faith in a God who delivers.