International Purple Day Has Arrived, Everyone!

Haley Ruyle
hruyle@lc.edu

 

Everyone get ready for International Purple Day! International Purple Day is an international holiday created to help raise awareness about Epilepsy by wearing purple in solidarity of people afflicted with the condition. Purple Day started back in 2008, founded by a girl named Cassidy Morgan, who created Purple Day from dealing with her own struggles of Epilepsy and decided to inform the world.

There are 150,000 new cases of epilepsy every year, according to epilepsy.com. Many people don’t realize what Epilepsy is, looks like, what is does, or how it affects peoples lives, and that is why Purple Day was created to inform people, to save lives and to change lives.

When anyone looks at an Epileptic person, they think they’re an average person. This is because there is no physical feature to an Epileptic, but the mental cost and limits in that person’s life are unbelievable! Epileptics face everyday struggles of bullies, the bus, certain foods and drinks, etc.

“Everyone is different, everyone is special in their own way.” Says Emily Walton, an attendee of Camp Flame Catcher, a camp designed for epileptic patients. “We can’t change who we are but we can embrace it and we can fight it. I love Purple Day. Spreading awareness sounds amazing, but I think the real truth is who will listen and who will help make a difference?”

“There are many forms of epilepsy, everyone has a different brain that works differently then the next patient, no one still to this day understands how to fully control seizures,” Dr. Robin Ryther, a neurologist to epileptic patients explains. “All we can do is just hope that one day modern medicine fixes that problem, spreading awareness might help change that, it might help save lives too.”

“I think spreading awareness is amazing because most people don’t know what epilepsy is and it just hurts when they don’t know,” says Cammy Hammitt, another Camp Flame Catcher attendee. “They just mock people who have seizures or they bully you. I think if more people knew, the less people with epilepsy would suffer.”

On March 26. go out and wear purple to support people who suffer Epilepsy and spread awareness to better educate everyone!

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