It was 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 28, 1995. Tracy Dixon-Salazar and her husband, Ruben, woke up to the sound of their 2-year-old daughter gagging in her room.
“We went running in there and saw her tiny little body jerking violently in her bed. She turned blue, stiff as a board and her eyes were rolled up. She was drooling and quivering,” Tracy recalled.
“Savannah was taken to the hospital, but the tests were normal. The doctors didn’t know what caused it and simply told us to contact them if it happens again.”
It happened again two weeks later with the same result and then began increasing to dozens of seizures a day.
At 4 ½, she was diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS), a severe form of epilepsy that develops in young children and often leads to lifelong disability.
The doctor said Savannah would not live to age 5.
Seizures continued to expand to hundreds a day.
Neither Tracy, a stay-at-home mom, nor Ruben, a deputy sheriff, had training or experience with serious medical conditions.