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Purple Day concert has personal connection

Concert organizer Roo Phelps has a personal connection to the struggles of those with epilepsy
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Purple Day, the international day raising awareness around epilepsy, carries a lot of meaning for Roo Phelps, morning host and music director for New Country 100.7 in Kelowna.

She helped organize two concerts in the Okanagan with CCMA winners The Road Hammers to commemorate the day, March 26, but her connection to the cause is much more personal.

Her best friend, Tese Speck, passed away in July 2010, just before her 25th birthday. The death was unexpected.

One of the biggest challenges for people with epilepsy, Phelps said, is trying to live a normal life while not being defined by their condition.

“She was so much more than just a person with epilepsy, but when people here someone has a condition regardless of what it is, they automatically want to try and define you by that,” Phelps said.

A valedictorian of her grad class, Speck was a sister, a daughter, she liked the movie Jaws and so much more.

“There was so much more to her than being a person who had epilepsy, but I don’t think it was something she would go around and tell a lot of people because she was afraid it would change their perceptions,” Phelps said.

Another big aspect of raising awareness around epilepsy for Phelps is teaching compassion and education for bystanders around those are going through and epileptic seizure.

She pointed to the old tale that you are supposed to put something in the mouth of someone having a seizure.

“That’s like medieval. Completely untrue, not supposed to do it, but it’s the one thing people ‘know’ about epilepsy,” Phelps said.

Understanding seizure first aid could help thousands of those with the condition.

Making sure someone going through a seizure is in a safe place, putting something underneath their head to avoid banging their head during convulsions, turning them on their side if they are frothing at the mouth are a few simple ways to help out.

“You’re not supposed to restrain them, not supposed to pin them or put anything in their mouth. You’re just supposed to let them have their seizure and keep an eye on them,” Phelps said, adding if a seizure goes on for longer than three minutes to call an ambulance.

Even simpler is just showing compassion for somebody having a seizure.

“Understanding they may be a bit confused or disoriented. Just being calm with the person, kind and letting them know what happened and sticking around with them until they have someone else come or a safe ride home,” Phelps said.

“A lot of times people who have epilepsy wake up and there are people standing around and jeering and leering and people on top of them because they try to pin them down. A lot of people I’ve spoken to throughout the years who have epilepsy said it can be just terrifying, not so much the seizure itself, but people’s reaction to it,” Phelps said.

Understanding how many people have epilepsy, each year an average of 15,500 Canadians are diagnosed, how common it is and knowing what to do are what Phelps hopes Purple Day can bring to light when it comes to educating the public.

To commemorate Purple Day, The Road Hammers are playing two shows in the Okanagan, one in Penticton on March 24 at the Mule Concert House and March 25 at the OK Corral in Kelowna. Tickets are $49, with 100 per cent of the proceeds going toward the Centre for Epilepsy and Seizure Education in B.C. and are available at the Grooveyard in Penticton and the OK Corral Liquor Store in Kelowna.