The Wish List is offering help to young woman suffering from seizures

The wish Kathy Williamson wants most is one nobody has been able to grant: an end to the epileptic seizures her 32-year-old mentally retarded daughter, Gina, has endured all her life.
But through the Wish List, people can help the Williamsons, whose Clermont County home needs repairs.

Their story is part of the 20th annual Wish List campaign, which begins today. The project is sponsored by The Enquirer and administered by the United Way.

Each year, the newspaper profiles less fortunate people in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, and readers respond with cash or in-kind donations.

All money is distributed by participating social-service agencies to needy people in the community. Last year, 1,452 donors contributed $130,668, bringing the total since the project began to almost $2.7 million.

As in the past, this year's Wish List encompasses a range of needs, such as bathroom repairs for an elderly widow, hearing aids for a 24-year-old who dreams of playing guitar and a wheelchair ramp for a victim of degenerative joint disease.

Like many people assisted by the Wish List, Gina Williamson has faced lifelong challenges.
She suffered her first seizure when she was 2 months old. Soon after, she was diagnosed with epilepsy, a disorder in which nerve cells of the brain, from time to time, release abnormal electrical impulses.

Gina's parents split up when she was 3. That led her mother, with four older children to care for, to turn to welfare.

The other children have long since grown up and moved out, but Gina still relies on care from her mother, Kathy. It is a 24-hour-a-day job.

Kathy dresses Gina. Cooks her meals. Gives her medication. She provides her paper and pencils to write with and puzzles to do. She keeps handy DVDs of Gina's favorite television show, "The Jeffersons."

"I don't know what life would be like without Gina," Kathy says.

She doesn't want to know. She acknowledges that providing care for her daughter is difficult, but she dismisses any thoughts of placing Gina in a nursing home.

"I still have plenty of energy. I plan to try to take care of her as long as I can."

Early this year, Kathy thought she might lose Gina, who was hospitalized for several weeks with pancreatitis.

"I lived in fear," Kathy says. "I'd wake up at night thinking about it."

Gina recovered. But the mother and daughter continue their long struggle with epilepsy.

"Seizures are so scary," Kathy says. Neither she nor Gina knows when they will occur, day or night. They sometimes happen daily, sometimes a few weeks apart. Some are so violent that Kathy calls an emergency squad.

Given her medical problems and large size, Gina must often be taken to medical appointments on a stretcher in an ambulance. But the wooden walkway to their single-story home in Miami Township is less than two feet wide, too narrow to accommodate a rolling gurney. The wish is for a wider walkway.

What's more, there are no gutters on the home's back side, and the face board is rotting. The bottom half of a bathroom window has no glass; two other windows are cracked.

The home repairs would mean one less worry for Kathy, who has her hands full as a caregiver.
Gina has not spoken or shown any emotion during our interview. But when mention is made that she has a good mother, a smile spreads across her face.

"I have really never regretted taking care of her for one day, because there is great love," Kathy says. "I've always loved Gina. I sure don't know how I could live without her."