Author Spotlight
As Jenna Miller pedals down the sidewalk on Mission Road, the hot July sun glares down on her blue bike, making it sparkle. Jenna, nine at the time, is riding with her brother Jacob and his two friends, headed to the Corinth Library in hopes of finding something to do. Finally, they reach the parking lot and turn in, headed for the brown doors.
They pause to let a white Toyota Camry pass, but the woman driving waves for them to go ahead. Jacob goes first, followed by his two friends, then Jenna in the back. As she’s about to clear the car, she feels a bang on her left leg, right by the knee. Before she can think, she’s being dragged on the ground, her leg caught on the bumper.
Dazed and unable to scream, she couldn’t get the driver’s attention. Jenna was dragged 180 feet before the woman driving realized there was a child attached to her bumper. Finally, a veterinarian walking some dogs banged on the driver’s windshield to get her to stop. Before then, Jenna was unable to feel anything, but upon stopping, the pain brought her to screams.
“I didn’t really know what was going on.” Jenna said. “I didn’t know what I was happening until the car stopped, and then I was like, ‘Oh my God…I just got hit by a car.’”
***
First, Jenna’s older sister Jade Wolf arrived after getting a call from Nancy, who knew Jade would beat her there. When the ambulance arrived, paramedics poured out the doors. They carefully strapped Jenna to a gurney and shipped she and her sister, Jade, then 20, off to Shawnee Mission Medical Center. All Jenna remembers is medics frantically taking her vital signs. At first, Jenna was in complete shock, and everything was blurred. After minutes went by, the massive ache in her leg took over and she could think of nothing else. Meanwhile, Jade, was huddled in the corner, watching her sister sob uncontrollably, feeling helpless. Jenna’s mom Nancy Wolf, had called Jade telling her to go to Jenna because she’d be able to get there quicker.
Trying to lighten up the situation, she said, “Hey, Jenna?” She pointed at Jenna’s wounded leg. “Do you want me to poke it?”
Jenna and the paramedics burst out laughing, breaking the tight energy. After the good break from the tension, the paramedics turn back to their work.
***
Jenna was in the hospital for not even 24 hours. Despite the seriousness of the accident, only a few bumps and bruises and a broken leg were visible. For Jenna, the worst part of all was a tie between the mushy hospital cafeteria tater tots and not being able to shower all day.
The weeks after her dismissal went smoothly. Since she wasn’t easily mobile, she spent many hours watching Disney Channel and playing Game Cube with Jacob to pass the time. She faithfully went to every soccer practice to sit on the bench and cheer on her team.
“I didn’t really have much to do after the accident, but after I got used to everything, it just kind of became my lifestyle,” Jenna said. “I got full strength in my left leg back and all of my muscle, too.”
Weeks went by, and the accident was in the past for Jenna. School had just started, and she was almost ready to return to the soccer field.
***
Jenna is woken up by the kitchen phone’s piercing ring. Groggily, she gets out of bed and answers.
“Hello?” Jenna said.
“Hi, honey,” Nancy said.
This is Jenna’s daily routine. Every morning, as her mom goes to work early, she calls Jenna to wake her up and to tell her to have a good day.
As they continue their conversation and Nancy is about to say goodbye, suddenly Jenna’s whole body tenses up, and she’s unable to move. The phone in her hand slips from her fingers and crashes on the floor. Two or three minutes later, Jenna regains control and picks up the phone, unaware that any time has passed.
“I didn’t know what was wrong,” Nancy said. “But I knew something was. It took about a week before I actually saw one and realized what was happening.”
The first time Nancy actually witnessed one of Jenna’s incidents, she immediately took Jenna to St. Luke’s, where tests were run for about a week.
Jenna lays down on a MRI bed and takes a deep breath. Nurses come up and stick some sucky things attached to some wires to her head; the monitor next to her starts beeping.
“All right, Jenna,” the doctor said. “We’re going to scan your brain today. When you go into the MRI, you need to stay as still as possible. But most importantly, we need you to fall asleep.”
“They had to hook her brain up to all these machines and monitors, and they had to draw blood every day,” Nancy said. “Her entire head was wrapped in bandaging; all you could see was her face. She was a trooper, but I think she was scared.”
After seven days of testing, Jenna was sent home, without answers. She returned for several more tests for the next few months, and after awhile, it was discovered that she had epilepsy, but from unknown causes. Her doctor finally decided to send them to the University of Chicago Medical Center for more advanced research.
According to Jenna’s neurologist, Dr. Mark Korhman of the University of Chicago Medical Center, epilepsy is a disorder where the brain fires in an abnormal fashion, causing them to have what is called a seizure.
When she arrived at the University of Chicago, she met Dr. Korhman. There, they gave her more EEG tests, and discovered that the seizures she had been having for the past few months were caused by head trauma-induced epilepsy.
“What happens is, when you bang your head, you can bruise the brain just like you can bang your arm if you hit it on the wall, for example.” Korhman said. “And when you bang your head, you’ve lost some brain cells at that point, which can cause scarring and cause seizures.”
She was sent home with strict doctors’ orders: no video games, no arcades, no strobe lights, and minimal TV and computer time. If she gets headaches, dizzy or light-headed she should lie down and rest immediately. If she starts vomiting it is usually a sign of a grand mal seizure (a seizure where the body stiffens and jerk all over and have loss of bladder control, usually lasting two to three minutes) coming on, to call 911.
It was not easy for Jenna to live with all these restrictions, as a 10 year old. In addition to the extra caution she now had to take, she also lost a lot of friends that year, according to Nancy.
“I think this was more because of parents not understanding the disease…like their kids were going to catch it or something,” Nancy said. “In fifth grade, the school actually asked me to not let her go on a field trip because they were afraid she might have a seizure, but the kid with diabetes gets to go, or the kid who is mentally challenged, know what I mean?”
The other huge challenge that came with epilepsy was the affect it had on Jenna’s learning abilities. The blow to her head really caused her learning speed to slow, and it became difficult for her to focus for a long time.
“My brother tutors me and he helps me a lot with reading, and after I got hit with the car, I went to Sylvan which helped a lot,” Jenna said. “English and science are my worst subjects. English with the reading… Science I just don’t really like. I’m really good at procrastinating.”
These days, seizures are extremely rare for Jenna; she hasn’t had one for nearly a year and a half. She still sees her doctor up in Chicago every six months, just in case, though her medicine, Devocote, has helped eliminate almost all of the seizures.
“Devocote basically works in a number of different ways by changing the excitability in the nerve cells in the brain, thereby preventing seizures,” said Korhman.
Although her seizures are virtually nonexistent, according to Jenna, she still gets what she calls seizures inside her head.
“It doesn’t feel like anything really,” Jenna said. “I just kind of blank out sometimes and stare off in space.”
According to doctor Korhman, those seizures in her head are called absence seizures. During an absence seizure, you just lose awareness for a few seconds. It happens to usually 10 percent of patients who have epilepsy.
Though Jenna’s seizures had taken a huge effect on her life, she always remained fearless.
“I’ve overcome the seizures;” Jenna said. “I’ve gotten better at controlling them. I know there are people around me who know what to do when I’m having a seizure, so I don’t need to be afraid.”
Jenna’s mom disagrees, and says that it is kind of impossible to master seizures, and control them. The real mastery is knowing the signs of a seizure, and being able to do whatever needs to be done in preventing and caring for them.
“I am very proud of her,” Nancy said. “[Her overcoming of seizures] is a combination of the medicine she is on that controls the seizures, but her attitude and high activity level (playing soccer) helps a bunch. She has never had an attitude of “why me” or felt like she was just going to lay down and let epilepsy beat her.”
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