Angel Shumate

Angel Shumate – Sonora, California
(At peace with her brother, Kris, on November 15, 2012)

On December 22, 2005, a day we will never forget, my beautiful daughter, Angel, had her first tonic clonic seizure.  By the following June, we got her diagnosis of Lafora.

Prior to the diagnosis of Lafora, Angel played basketball, softball and volleyball.  She was a color guard for Columbia school and helped the school sell anything they needed to sell.  She raised over $3000 for the American Heart Association, raised hundred of dollars for new band uniforms and was always willing to help someone less fortunate than herself.  She volunteered at the school library and in several classrooms as a teacher’s assistant.  She babysat for several neighbors and helped older and disabled members of our community.  She loved life and she loved going to church.  She had plans to join the navy and to serve her country.  She wanted to go to college and get her teaching degree and a degree in ministry as well.

Due to my disabilities, Angel is in foster care and is not getting the care she needs and deserves. Joseph is Kris and Angel’s brother and he has a learning disability and recently had a tonic clonic seizure, however the doctors will not test him.

My children deserve to have some hope for a future. They were both filled with love and life and kindness; they had planned on devoting their lives to a future of service.  Today, they are unable to help themselves, and I am unable to physically care for them.

My children are the joys of my life. I have dedicated my life to make sure they had a future teaching them what you give in life you will receive not expecting anything from any one just a joy that you were there to help others. Life is what you make of it.  I have to believe that there is a promise of a cure on the horizon.  Kris and Angel wouldn’t want this to be the fate or destiny of any other children.  Research is the answer to all of our prayers.

– Provided by Tricia, another grief stricken mother