Tri-County Student Spreads Story of Hope

CONTACT: LISA GARRETT, EXT. 2315

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2/8/2001
(By Lisa Garrett)

PENDLETON --- Every time you see Carrie Henderson, she's smiling.

That's because she's living a life she never dreamed – one that includes attending Tri-County Technical College, driving a car, working a part-time job -- all things that teenagers take for granted, but not Henderson, who from the 5th grade until her sophomore year, suffered from epilepsy and endured multiple seizures on a daily basis. She stayed at home, secluded and scared. "It was a lonely time for me," she recalls.

"Now I have something to smile about," says a seizure-free Henderson, who finally was diagnosed in 1999 and later underwent successful brain surgery that removed damaged tissues.

It was in the fifth grade that the seizures began, first with her body shaking a little like she was startled. Her fifth grade teacher noticed one day that she went into a deep stare for 2 – 3 minutes. She alerted Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, who took their daughter to a physician who diagnosed her with epilepsy.

From there began a succession of prescriptions in an effort to quell the seizures that began in the morning and continued throughout the day. "Throughout these years, my family and I traveled from doctor to doctor and state to state searching for a solution to this," says the Seneca resident. She has been on every seizure medicine available, including special diets. Nothing worked, and most intensified the seizures.

A friend told her parents about Dr. Yong Park at the Medical College of Georgia. They were willing to try anything.

"What my family and I liked best about Dr. Park is that his faith is very strong in the Lord. He says 'don't thank me, thank God, he's the one who gives the knowledge,'" she says.

No one really knows what she went through every day, says Henderson, who, in addition to the loneliness and depression, was struggling with her schoolwork.

Public seizures were frightening and embarrassing, she remembers. She was homebound during her ninth grade year because of the frequency of the episodes. Once she fell down the steps of a school bus and hit her head and suffered a concussion. "Basically I didn't know what it was like to live a normal life," she says.

"I lost hope," she adds.

She also forfeited sports, after playing basketball for three years and making the All-Star team. She quit after falling on the court.

Academically, she was failing, also. "My grades were awful," she says. My lack of concentration influenced them."

"I was depressed," admits Henderson, who saw four psychologists during the time.

She missed the normal life – going out with friends, driving a car. Even taking showers scared her because she was prone to fall. "I stayed close to home."

The thought of brain surgery in 1999 didn't frighten her; instead she saw it as the answer. "God will see me through this," she says. "We had been searching all over for the answers, and nobody could figure it out for us."

The seizures were coming from the left frontal lobe of her brain. The tests revealed damaged tissue that surgeons removed in August of 1999 during a four-hour procedure.

When she awakened, everything was blurry, and she couldn't speak. Paralysis and slurred speech were possibilities, they all knew. "We were willing to take the chance. When I opened my eyes, I felt like I had been born again," she says.

She was up and walking the next day. Surprising everyone, she entered 11th grade with her class at Seneca High on time.

She's been seizure-free for two-and-one-half years. Her grades improved dramatically. She was a three-time Rotary student and made the A-B Honor Roll. "I was finally able to focus," she says. She went from making F's to A's in her classes. "I didn't care about academics before. Now, I wanted to become something."

Since graduating from high school, she has been awarded six scholarships: Tri-County's Access and Equity Scholarship, the Bryant Sebastian Sharpe Scholarship, the Brian Antonio Grant Scholarship, a Phi Beta Sigma scholarship, Delta Sigma Theta scholarship and LIFE. "I want be a registered nurse and work with epileptic children. I know what they've been through," she says. "I want them to have a better understanding of what's going on with their bodies. I don't want a child to go into a state of depression not knowing why this happened to him or her or to think that he or she is the only one suffering through this disease."

When choosing a college, she looked to Tri-County. "I had been sheltered for so many years. I felt like I needed to work my way back up at a smaller college. I missed a lot in high school. I was homebound the ninth grade. Choosing Tri-County was the best decision I could have made about school. It's convenient, and I feel comfortable in this atmosphere. It's easy to make friends."

Henderson never thought she would finish high school, much less go to college.

"I have a different life today. I'm in college, I'm working a part-time job, and I have a chance to experience things I never thought would happen."

She continues: "I want to give back to the community and to the many people who prayed for me – the same people who are looking to what I'll become in life. I want to spread my story of hope. I don't want to become a nurse for the money – I want to be a nurse because my heart is there."
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