Ouachita Stories

Previously published in the 2020 Ouachitionian yearbook 

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that disturbs nerve cell activity in the brain, which will cause the person to experience seizures. This disorder affects 1.2 percent of people in the U.S.. That comes out to around 3.4 million people nationally. Chloe Lay, a freshman elementary education major from Little Rock, Ark., is a victim of this disorder. 

“I developed epilepsy in the fifth grade,” Lay said. “When I was in the sixth grade, my doctor decided to put a VNS, or a Vagus Nerve Stimulator in me to help control the seizures. There is a wire that comes up through my neck to my head. Every 12 seconds an electrical charge goes off to my brain and it helps control the seizures.”

Having lived the majority of her life with epilepsy, she has had to overcome the challenges of being a student and participating in school with the disorder.

“Sixth grade through sophomore year of high school I really struggled in school. In middle school it was harder because the medicine I was on made it hard to concentrate and I was constantly tired. It was harder for me to understand things and just grasp it,” Lay said. “School work through those five years was difficult. In the seventh grade I was homeschooled when I had surgery, and in the eight grade I went back to school and I was still having seizures and it was affecting my schoolwork.”

Lay had a total of four doctors and two surgeries. Due to her surgeries, she went to a private Catholic academy, Mount Saint Mary’s, for a smaller school environment. Originally, she was supposed to attend North Little Rock High School. Due to NLRHS having more than one floor, her parents chose to send her to Mount Saint Mary’s for safety reasons.

“It wasn’t my decision to move to Mount,” Lay said. “I didn’t get too involved in any clubs for my freshman and sophomore years which made my high school experience more difficult, but I got involved with different clubs and the dance team my junior and senior year which made things better.”

Since her difficulty dealing with epilepsy, her sister, Sarah Cate Lay started to compete in beauty pageants in order to raise awareness for her sister's illness.

“She started competing in the eighth grade,” Lay said. “Since she started pageants around that time, my seizures were getting bad, she labeled her platform ‘Seizures Aren’t Spooky.’ She would go around to different people and talk to the older kids about my story and how to help someone if they were to have a seizure. Her platform is now ‘The Purple Project,’ the epilepsy awareness and seizure first aid.”

Together they created an educational YouTube video that explains in depth how to assist someone if they are experiencing a seizure.

“I’ve been seizure-free for 34 months,” Lay said. “Those five years were definitely hard. We didn’t think I would be able to go to college in the eighth grade. I can drive myself, you have to be a year seizure free in Arkansas before you can drive. I’m much more independent and I get to go to college.”

Photo by Danielle Sourber

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