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South Surrey students mark Purple Day

Earl Marriott Secondary's Hayley Grant spoke to younger students about epilepsy at Hall’s Prairie Elementary Thursday.
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Hayley Grant (far left) and her mom

For the fifth year in a row, Earl Marriott Secondary student Hayley Grant spoke at Hall’s Prairie Elementary on Purple Day, as a way to raise awareness of epilepsy.

Grant, 15, lives with the condition – and the seizures that come as a result – and has been speaking publicly on Purple Day since she was a student there.

Purple Day – which was Thursday – was started in 2008 by a nine-year-old Nova Scotia girl named Cassidy Megan in order to bring awareness to epilepsy.

At Thursday’s presentation at Hall’s Prairie – one of the school district’s smallest schools – many students and teachers wore purple to show their support.

During the presentation, which began with a short video explaining how to help someone who suffers an epileptic seizure, Grant explained her condition and shared her own experiences – including that her first seizure occurred when she was just one-and-a-half years old, during Christmas dinner.

Epilepsy is not a disease, she explained, but rather a disorder caused by abnormal electrical activity in one’s brain, causing it to “overheat.”

After Grant’s presentation, the young, inquisitive students from Hall’s Prairie were given the opportunity to ask questions of Grant and her mother, Jacqueline Sephton – everything from “Can you tell if you’re about to have a seizure” to “how many seizures have you had?”

For more about epilepsy and Purple Day, visit www.purpleday.org