Purple Shirt Day

Today is Epilepsy Awareness Day, otherwise known as Purple Shirt Day. Often, groups of people with issues they want to promote will dedicate a day featuring a special garment. This is commonly in the form of a shirt. Indigenous rights are orange, autism is blue, anti-bullying is pink. Breast cancer is also pink, technically a pink ribbon. Just this month we had World Down Syndrome Day, symbolised by mismatched socks. Men grow mustaches for prostate cancer. St. Patrick's Day is green, although that is more of a party than anything. Considering the history of the Irish, it might have had a more somber motivation at some point. I don't know, I'm not looking it up.

Anyway, epilepsy's colour is purple.

I don't think I've mentioned it on this blog, but Lee-Anne has epilepsy. She gave me specific permission to talk about it for this post.

So I'm invested in Purple Shirt Day. I thought I didn't own anything purple, but when I announced the day at work and lamented this fact, several people mentioned that I did. This seemed likely, as fashion is not a passion of mine and others often have a better awareness of my wardrobe than I do. 

I scoured my home, and the next day wore my purplest colours. The people at work told me that while I could pass, my clothes were more burgandy. Since then, I've considered having burgandy as my favourite colour. Believe it or not, presently it's purple.

I decided to go to Wal Mart. Clothes shopping can be kind of difficult for a guy my size. Not so much finding clothes that fit, but finding variety. Clothes developers tend to think big guys just wear plaid button-ups or solid T-shirts. To be fair, this is pretty much my comfort zone.

Wal Mart reliably has T-shirts in a spetrum of sizes and colours. But when I went, I couldn't find one in purple. So, big guys tend to wear solid white, grey, and black T-shirts.

It took me a day to conjur a memory from my childhood. I remembered an activity that would allow me some autonomy in colour choice despite a limited market. Tie-dye!

So I went back to Wal Mart and they didn't have a Tie-dye kit either. In the end, I found one at Michaels (targeted arts and crafts store). While I was there, I was sketched out by the lightness of the dye box. Despite promises that it contained bottles, dyes, gloves and rubber bands, it felt empty. So on a whim I bought a bottle of regular purple dye as well.

The tie-dye kit delivered on its promise but in the end I opted for the regular dye. As per the instructions, we stirred it in hot water, rinsed it until it ran clear, put it through the washing machine and dryer

Going into the wash, it was an eggplant purple. Coming out, it was splotchy and uneven. After drying, it's a pretty uniform lilac. Definitely not burgandy though.

Anyway, the reason that I've been so adament on having something purple to wear is because today, on Epilepsy Awareness Day, Lee-Anne is having an intra-cranial observation done. As I write this, she is undergoing surgery to have electrodes put on the inside of her skull. This is so they can pinpoint the location of the seizures. If they get the right data, we may be able to make an effort to cure her epilepsy entirely.

She will have to be in the hospital for two to three weeks, and she will need to have several gran mal seizures while there (those are the bigger ones, the ones you likely picture when you think about seizures). It won't be fun.

We've been through something similar once before. She had to do an initial observation where they put probes on the outside of her skull. This also took a few weeks. We watched most of Orange is the New Black over video chat during this time. They found enough information to qualify her for this further, more invasive observation, which may in turn qualify her for full treatment.

Aside from Purple Shirt Day, last Sunday was Palm Sunday. I'm not a religious guy, but the literary symbolism seems to mean... something. She'll also be in for Easter and April Fools. Today is also the day after the full moon. I dunno, seems like a bunch of significant stuf orbiting around this day.

Anyway, no promises that I will talk much on the details of this going forward. These are sort of special circumstances, but usually it's kind of a personal topic.

Anyway, happy Purple Shirt Day!