Being brave means to not give up. Being brave means to try and ignore the negativity that comes your way and turn it into a positive. Essentially being brave is to be you aside from what other people may think. Paige was a very, very vibrant, active little girl, the little social butterfly, very large friend group, into sports. Just a very, very fun child to be around. Full of love, laughter. Childhood years were great until around my first grade year, and that's when I was prescribed seizure medications.
And then I vividly remember around the first week of second grade, I had a seizure in class. It was a physical seizure, everyone could see, and I was embarrassed. And then from then on, I remember that was the point where my life started to not be fun. So when we finally arrived at Shriners, it was late at night and they had a team waiting when the ambulance pulled up and you could tell immediately that they were prepared and they knew what they were doing.
The doctors were very open and honest with us and told us, "Hey, this is very serious. So Paige was diagnosed with a disease process known as toxic epidermal necrolysis. You'll have an allergic reaction to a medication that you started taking and your skin starts to turn red and then develop blisters, and they slough off, which causes intense pain. And when your skin is sloughed off, then you can't protect your body from surrounding infections and bacteria.
I will say Shriners did amazing things. They grafted her with the pig skin and her pigmentation damage is very, very limited. And really when she was a freshman is when she was really able to complete a full year of school, and I saw the happy, vibrant little girl come back out in her.
And from there to where she's at today is just It's an amazing thing to see. I just want to be remembered as a young woman who has gone through a lot but doesn't use that to keep moving on in life. Hey, I'm Grayson. I'm 20 years old. I'm majoring in construction science with dreams of being a developer and I'm from Ukraine.
