Courage is needed to face seizures...especially uncontrolled ones!

The seizures have come back. In 10 days, she will undergo brain surgery at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Emily Olsen is 16. She is smart and funny and disarmingly direct. She has a disorder known as Rasmussen's encephalitis, a rare form of epilepsy that surfaced when she was 7. This will be her eighth adventure with brain surgery.

Two and a half years ago, in an attempt to end her debilitating seizures, a team of neurologists at John Hopkins removed the right side of her brain. It's called a hemispherectomy. As expected, Emily lost her left field of vision. Her left arm and left leg, already crippled by seizures, were further stiffened with paralysis. But the seizures stopped.

With just average luck that might have been the end of it, but it didn't pan out that way. Emily has been back in surgery twice, and she isn't out of the woods. The left hemisphere of her brain has shifted toward center and spinal fluid has filled the gap, increasing the pressure inside her skull. Her prognosis is uncertain.

Still, it has been a good year for this young hunter, even a great one.

In April, armed with special permit and a crossbow, she went turkey hunting with the Little Wolf Gobblers, a hunting club out of Marion whose members have become skilled and enthusiastic guides for individuals with physical disabilities. On the second day of the hunt, Emily's mentor, Dave Zachow, was calling in turkeys from every direction. Emily fired on a gobbler, her dart narrowly missing.

"I know that it's not that I can't do it," she said. "I think I'm anticipating the shot."

Zachow has some other ideas. He is working on a way to modify the chair she hunted from in the blind.

"Dave is determined," said Emily's father, Chris. "He wants her back next spring. He requested her."

A Shiocton-based organization called Challenge the Outdoors arranged for Emily to meet the Clintonville-area turkey hunters. CTO members are dedicated to overcoming the obstacles faced by disabled hunters and anglers, and they have programs throughout the year.

"They're just incredible," said Chris.

Through CTO, they learned about the annual "Helluva Hunt," based on the Gary and Jane Stearns ranch in Douglas, Wyo. It's a bunch of ranchers and volunteers who set aside more than 60,000 acres on the opening days of the antelope season. Each October, they invite 15 different disabled persons from all over the country to hunt, all expenses paid other than transportation to and from Douglas.

Emily applied and was accepted. On the last day of September, she and her father flew into Casper, Wyo., and were met at the airport by Gary Stearns. At the ranch, they met the other hunters and the guides and started making friends. More than 200 volunteers make the event possible, including four hunters from Chicago who take a week's vacation each year so they can offer their services as guides.

Guides are carefully matched to the guests. Emily was assigned to Gary Stearns' brother, John Stearns Sr., who was assisted by his son, John Stearns Jr. At the Douglas rifle range, they worked on marksmanship. Emily had her own .243-caliber rifle and was shooting pretty well, but not with the kind of accuracy you need for antelope, which are often targeted at great distances. Emily was struggling with the noise and distractions on the range.

"I was frustrated," she said. "I wasn't as accurate as they wanted me to be."

The elder Stearns, prone to neither distraction nor frustration, suggested a different rifle, one fitted with a double scope, the second mounted several inches higher. It allowed him to assist with aiming.

"Whatever I could see, he could see the same thing," Emily said. "It was cool."

At 4 a.m. the next day, Emily awoke to find her father leaning over her with his video camera running. By her standards, he was enjoying himself far too much for that hour of day. The four of them were soon in a beat-up old pickup truck, rolling over high-country plains where free-roaming cattle graze on short grasses.

If you ask a rancher how many head of cattle he owns, he might reply, "Well, 326, if they all show up."

Emily was in the back seat with John Sr., the window on her side rolled down and capped with a strip of foam so it could be used as a rifle rest. Her handicapped permit allows her to hunt from a vehicle.

In the twilight, she could see a herd of antelope, more than a hundred, feeding in groups. In Montana, Emily said, folks just call them "goats."

"Pick one out," John Sr. said to her.

She did, a buck, a hundred yards distant. She could feel her heart pounding. Behind her, John Sr.'s voice was deep and slow and soothing.

"He said, 'OK, we're not going to shoot. We're just going to get lined up on it.'"

Then John Jr. spotted a larger buck, at a greater distance. Emily shifted her attention. Again, John Sr. told her they were just practicing. They watched the antelope, studied it, watched it move. Emily lined up on it with the rifle. Her heart was still racing, but she felt calmer.

"Whenever you are ready," came John's voice.

She fired. The antelope, standing roughly 130 yards away, didn't move. She fired two more times. She didn't realize it, but she'd hit it with the first shot. Also the third. Belatedly, the animal fell over.
"He (John Sr.) told me they are a hard animal to kill," Emily said. "He said if it doesn't go down right away, that's normal."

Emily's was the first antelope shot on the hunt and it was the largest. Most adult antelope weigh about 100 pounds. Unlike deer, the bucks never lose their horns, which slowly grow thicker and taller. An animal is considered trophy size when the horns are 12 inches long. On the buck Emily shot, the horns were almost 15 inches.

The Douglas-area ranchers don't let anyone else hunt on their land until the guests of Helluva Hunt are finished, and so some other hunters were camped out, waiting, and when they saw Emily's trophy, they started giving her a hard time, good-natured but heartfelt. Apparently they had been scouting the area.

"They were mad at me because I shot the one they wanted," Emily said.

She was smiling, still pleased by the memory.

Among those whooping and hollering the loudest for Emily was a young volunteer named Eva Trusty, who had befriended her. Trusty is a firefighter from California who serves as the official hunt photographer. Another of Emily's new friends is a grizzled looking guy named Marvin Stotyn from Colorado. Stotyn uses a wheelchair and was a guest here 10 years ago. Ever since, he has returned as a guide. His wife runs the welcome desk.

Volunteer staff worked through the night to process the meat from 15 antelopes, as every guest eventually shot one. Emily and her father spent another day sightseeing around the ranch. They had the time of their lives, although in Wyoming, both attest, the verb "barbecue" apparently means, "burn to a charcoal-coated crisp."

A taxidermist is mounting Emily's antelope. It will be shipped this way in four to six months. She was able to cover part of the cost by applying a door prize to the project, but it's still an expensive piece of work.

Back home, they got a letter from Trusty, who heard about the mount. Trusty asked if she could please contribute to the cost of her friend's trophy mount.

Shortly after the hunt, Emily's seizures returned, just a few of them, milder than before and widely spaced, a week or two between episodes. On Wednesday, four days after the interview for this story, she was hit with six seizures.

Her mother, Joan, normally a bastion of positive mental attitude, is getting a little frantic. Their best hope is that the seizures are being caused by the pressure on Emily's brain and that when the pressure is relieved, the seizures will stop.

"We're hoping very, very, very badly that this is all tied up together," she said Thursday.

Emily has a bunch of letters from Montana. She made friends on that two-day hunt she will keep for life. She said unique experiences can form deep bonds in a short time.

No one has to explain that to Marvin, the mountain man in a wheelchair who gets around so well he guides for other hunters.

"This was the most enjoyable hunt ever," he wrote Emily, "because of you."