Purple Pride

Hi, my name is Ike Nwankwo and I’ve had seizures…I have epilepsy.

Well, that was another tough admission for me. However, this one was a bit tougher than the prior blog post in which I had to blow my cover about launching Cardz for Kidz! because we’d missed some of our goals—see Secret’s Out. If you look at that post, and the next one, you’ll see that I have opened up before about my brain surgery. But when you read those two blog posts or if you happen to sense a common theme throughout anything where my personal story is the focus, I often refer to epilepsy strictly in the past tense.

I recall even after having my brain surgery, and being on a multitude of medications, that I would always tell myself that I didn’t have epilepsy. I’d always think I simply had “pre-seizures,” not the full grand mal seizures—so it’s different! With that in mind I could sympathize with—but not fully relate to—the children on the 19th floor at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago; the children Cardz for Kidz! partners with at the neurology units at Akron Children’s Hospital AND University Hospitals-Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital; and all the children I connect with on Instagram via hashtags such as #seizuressuck.

You might want to say, “Ike, stop lying. You’ve had a grand mal seizure AND you’ve even watched a recorded episode.” My response would simply be, “See, what had happened was…” But being 100% open and honest, here's the story of that trip in the hospital. Due to my declining health and the fact that the meds weren’t working, my new doctors decided I needed to have an updated in-patient EEG. During that week, they took me off all my medications in order to trigger as many seizures as possible. When I’m in tough situations, my response is either to laugh or to cry. My tear glands were on strike that day, so all I could was laugh and tell jokes; thankfully, I quickly bonded with all the nurses and staff in charge of my care since we were all laughing. A bit later there was a big blank spot in my memory. Later my nurse (and "friend") came in; she told me I “had a bad one” and then asked if I wanted to watch it. I agreed and watched myself have my first-ever grand mal seizure. On that tape I saw my mom, who was in the room, stand up and run over to me in fear. My response as I watched myself was: “See what had happened was, I wasn’t on any medications. So, I don’t have real epilepsy like the children I volunteer with.”

Honestly (and my sincerest apologies to our friends at @elijahs_fight on Instagram), I was being completely selfish and that’s why I didn’t share the picture below on the Cardz for Kidz! Instagram account. I figured since there was some concern about how my epilepsy would have impacted my previous job, I should hide my condition while searching for a new position. [Side note: I hope Elijah’s enjoying himself with the angels.]

Then again, these days, there’s no room for excuses. I’m currently employed and the University of Michigan Health System plans to write a blog post about my medical condition. Still, I modified some of the Instagram posts that directly focused on my epilepsy/seizures.

Original version:

Cardz for Kidz! version:

Although there are other Ike Nwankwos out there, I still felt the need to modify their words and remove my last name—due to another (earlier) post stating, “Ike Nwankwo wrote Jaxon a very special note about how he had #seizures and to stay strong!” I should be proud that it’s helping uplift children.

In light of Epilepsy Awareness Day being Sunday, March 26th, I’m going to be even more open. Being brutally honest with you, I’m definitely not thankful to have this condition; however, I’m proud that so far I’ve been able to overcome it, in addition to the progress I’ve made in all aspects of my life.

I recall back in high school I used to play football; at the end of practice, or after different games, we would huddle up and get hyped together. Being one of the varsity team’s captains, I oftentimes got to lead our chant(s). How it worked was I, or another leader, would shout “PURPLE!” and everyone else would yell “PRIDE!” That’d go back and forth, back and forth until we broke it down and celebrated together. Even though all of us with epilepsy aren’t gathered in one place, wearing the same uniform, I believe we should all still proudly proclaim “PURPLE PRIDE!” since we’re effectively overcoming this neurological disorder. My name is Ikedichi J. Nwankwo and I am proudly overcoming epilepsy!

All week long I wore purple and I’ll definitely wear purple during my volunteer shift at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago this Sunday, March 26th—in honor of Epilepsy Awareness Day.

Also, if you look closely at this picture, you’ll see my love of homemade artwork and working with kids is nothing new!!!

FYI - purple for epilepsy similar to pink for breast cancer.


To see more pictures and stories, please check out our websitewww.cardzforkidz.org; like us on Facebook; follow us on Twitter and Instagram; visit our Google+ or LinkedIn pages! Also, check out some of our videos onYouTube!

Front and Center

In previous blog posts, we’ve discussed how Q4 2016 was a record-breaking quarter in the history of Cardz for Kidz!. There were some great highlights—including the two phenomenal groups that made over 1,000 cards. Then there were some aspects that were less than ideal—such as receiving most of the holiday cards a little late. One way we were able to overcome those obstacles was thanks to the behind-the-scenes contributions of one of our Cardz for Kidz! board members, Robin Nwankwo. For example, as mentioned in the “We’ve Been Hiding” blog post, we delivered a total of 340 cards to different locations all over Lousiana. What we didn’t explain was how we were able to do that—it was all thanks to Robin Nwankwo! Prior to her trip down to Shreveport, she researched different senior centers, pediatric hospitals as well as shelters; then, in her free time, she hand-delivered those 340 cards. Then on a later date, closer to Christmas Day, she drove around the Atlanta metropolitan area and hand-delivered another batch of over 150 cards to similar locations.

As mentioned in the “We’ve Been Hiding” post, so far we’ve only added one of the six locations (specifically, in Shrevport, LA) where we have delivered cards to on our website’s map.

Similar to the “In Debt” blog post, an individual’s contributions remind us about how there are so many other people who should also be recognized and publically thanked. In addition to Robin’s pivotal support, there are other valuable contributors as well.

• ·         Erin Rea, Priscilla Oh, Thaddeus Green & Oju Ajagbe: We can proudly state that we now have over 100 blog posts! First, we want to thank Erin and Priscilla for being the primary blog post editors. The two of them originally agreed to review and edit all of the blog posts. Now that we’ve been trying to do them at least on a weekly basis, Thaddeus “Thad” and Oju have also agreed to help out. Thanks to their contributions, we’ve heard from others that they’ve been able to find our website via various search engines.
• ·         Eric Whobrey & Robert Brooks: We’ve received several compliments on the layout of our website! Although we originally paid to create the site, maintaining and/or updating it would be very difficult for us to do on our own. Thankfully, Eric and Robert are on board to provide valuable insight and have also taught us different ways to update the website as well as step in and make the detailed updates for us when needed.

There are a more people who have provided—and continue to provide—valuable support (e.g. SEO—Search Engine Optimization) and have asked to remain anonmyous. So although these people are primarily behind-the-scenes players for Cardz for Kidz!, we wanted to take a some time to make sure they’re FRONT AND CENTER and receive the recognition they deserve!

To see more pictures and stories, please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org; like us on Facebook; follow us on Twitter and Instagram; visit our Google+ or LinkedIn pages! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Just Say PLS

OK, we’re a bit outdated in many things. For example, we’ve mentioned this before, but some of us who “work” behind the scenes at Cardz for Kidz! didn’t know who Elsa and Anna (#Frozen) were when a hospital requested them on cards a couple years ago. Then, before that, we were a bit confused when we started getting a bunch of yellow alien cards. Don’t worry, we caught up on both of those!!! So we’re catching up with kids, but we think we’re a bit outdated on how things are with teens (and even some grown adults) and how they text. Here are some acronyms or ways to shorten words we’ve heard of:

• BRB
• LOL
• BFF
• JK
• BTW
• TMI
• THX
• GR8
• 2nite

Now one thing we’re not so sure of is how do folks spell “please” when they’re trying to shorten it? Do they spell it PLZ or PLS?

We’re not so sure about which one of those we should use when we’re sending text messages to friends, but we do know how we should spell it when we’re trying to get an ideal set of cards, PLS.

The reason why comes from our most recent experience connecting with our current partner, PLS.

Since we get plenty of packages of cards, we LOVE it when groups include some type of note or letter that let us know where the cards are coming from. That helps us keep track of the card totals in our system. In addition, we LOVE it when groups set aside their Top 10. That ranges from placing them at the top of the box or placing them all on one side. One of the reasons we always post the Top 10 across all our sites is so all groups get confirmation that we have received their cards. Finally, we’d LOVE it if our point person could check to make sure the cards didn’t say ‘Get Well Soon’ and were all appropriate.

In the shipment of cards from PLS in Q1 2017 we received a total of 997 cards that were made by their different offices and stores across the country! As you can see in the image above, they included a note so we knew where they were coming from and who made the cards. Also, they laid the Top 10 cards at the top of the box and checked to make sure all the cards were appropriate for our kids. 

When we checked with our point person, Roseanne Segovia, at PLS  about her favorite part of leading the event here’s what she said:

The best part about expanding this opportunity to all of our employees was allowing different voices and messages to come through in the designs of the cards. It feels great to be able to make a child’s day better, and we wanted everyone at our company to have that chance. Hearing the excitement from our employees about how happy they were to contribute brings me a lot of joy, and I’m glad that excitement was reflected in the cards.

As we always say, it’s a two-way street. People have a great time making cards, and the kids/staff are appreciative when they receive them.

Since the folks behind the scenes at Cardz for Kidz!  do this in their “free” time, we’re not so sure we’ll be able to stay up to date and watch all the new cartoons, so we may be a bit behind. Also, if we get some texts we may have to use Google to figure out what some of the more detailed acronyms means. But we know whenever we have a request and need some ideal cards, we’ll JUST SAY PLS and they’ll be on their way! You may want to check out our Participants tab while you can! When we update their totals at the end of Q1, PLS is going to go from being in the Silver section all the way up to a Diamond participant!!!

#JustSayPLS #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories, please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, visit our Google+ or LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

All Accomplished

WOW! We were very shocked (yet extremely happy) to learn that we actually reached ALL of our 2016 resolutions! Here are our four goals accompanied with what our actual numbers were at the end of the year.

1.      Uplifting their Spirits—“Have less than 1% of the cards be discarded for erroneously saying ‘Get Well Soon’.”

·         We calculated the results and thanks to the superior quality of your cards, we only had to discard 0.8% of the record-setting number of cards we received. THANK YOU for not writing ‘Get Well Soon’ and for making sure that we received the majority of these cards on time.

2.      Hospitalized and/or Traumatized—“At the end of 2015, we had a partnership with 28 different locations with children. Amongst those destinations, only two of them were for abused children. In 2016, we’d like to double that number and send a total of over 150 cards to children who are abused and/or orphans each quarter (all while increasing the amount of hospitals we connect with).”

·         Our goal was to send at least a total of 600 cards to children who were abused and/or orphans—while making sure that we increased to four different partnership destinations by the end of 2016. Once again, we not only met, but also surpassed our goal! All in all, we delivered nearly a total of 1,100 cards to the following SIX partnership locations:

o   Orangewood Foundation™: Foster and Community Youth Services

o   The Gift of a Helping Hand Charitable Trust

o   Family Programs Hawaii

o   Women Against Abuse

o   Alameda County Family Justice Center

o   Camden County Women’s Center

·         And that total does not even include the children we reached in Haiti, as well as the students affected by the school bus accident in Tennessee.

3.      Across the Globe—“In 2015, we sent cards to FIVE different countries (USA, Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, and Haiti). We’d like to increase that by two to SEVEN different countries.”

·         Thankfully, we were able to, once again, exceed this goal. We sent cards to: the USA, Mexico, Canada, Nigeria, Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Honduras, and Australia!

4.      Homemade Cards—“OK. Wow. We may have to decrease this a bit, but right now our goal is to get 7,800 cards.”

·         All we can do is laugh! We thought we would have to decrease this goal, but as you can see in the chart below, we surpassed our goal of 7,800 by over 70%!

For 2017, our desire is to maintain this progress! We want to continue to have to discard less than 1% of the cards created; reach 10 different countries; and receive 15,000 cards. Let’s work together to see if we can attain these ambitious goals!! Looking back at 2016’s goals, we really thought there was no way we could reach them…yet, they were ALL ACCOMPLISHED and MORE!!

To see more pictures and stories, please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org; like us on Facebook; follow us on Twitter and Instagram; visit our Google+ or LinkedIn pages! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!