My sister Dreama, who was 13, could only say a few words. Since I grew up with it, I didn’t know how unusual this was. She could walk then, but soon someone always had to be able to carry Dreama, or “sissy” as we called her, through the house or to the car.
In 1972, six years before I was born, my sister got measles. My mom always told me that this is why she was sick, but I was probably 8 years old when she finally explained the whole thing to me.
Dreama was smart as a whip. Her principal would later say that she was astounded by her intelligence and that she was a popular, promising girl. But after she got measles, she began to fall behind in school and lose coordination. That was the end of a normal seven-year-old child.
Over the next 14 years, she would slowly lose all functions. She was diagnosed with SSPE, known then as Dawson’s Encephalitis, a rare but almost always fatal complication of measles which affects your brain.
This meant my childhood was not normal, either. Growing up we had a hospital bed in our living room, with physical therapists, home health aides, and others coming and going.
My mom started taking her to see a doctor in Detroit, the only one she could find who was remotely familiar with SSPE. She was given a stapled packet listing everyone who had this disease at that time, which had about 200 names. Mom became friends with two of the other parents whose children had this disease. We visited them when we could.
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