Please assist Laura Beth Williams

BY DOROTHY TIFFANY

Laura has spent a long summer slowly recovering from the debilitating effects of viral encephalitis, contracted on March 21, 2010.  She was on total life support for several weeks and had so many seizures, the doctors stopped counting.  She had just graduated with a degree in Economics and started her career at NASA/GSFC two months before her first massive seizure.  She is doing better than she was in April, for which we are grateful.  She can walk and talk and do things we feared she would never do again.   Although the doctors at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center searched for reasons for the seizures, the only cause they ever found was a virus that went into her brain, and started as a simple cold.   She was released from the hospital two months after her first seizure.

Laura has had a number of serious set-backs and hospitalizations this summer and with each one, the battle to regain her health and independence grew more difficult.  However, each set back made her more determined than ever to recover and resume her normal activities.  Greek philosopher, Epictetus wrote, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”  Laura is a living example of that concept.  Through a miracle, Laura regained consciousness a month after her coma began.  She continues to improve.  Although she is taking large amounts of anti-seizure medications, Laura has regained much of her cognitive skills and tries hard to be the way she always was.  She doesn’t complain or cry.  She just accepts her illness and works each day to regain her capabilities and be happy.  And she is doing a fantastic job at rebuilding her skills.  She is my hero.

Laura and her family have bravely dealt with her illness with an attitude that amazes me.  They have discovered the most important things in life.  They live for today.  Not yesterday.  Not tomorrow.  Just today.  Laura’s father, Doug, told me recently that he doesn’t worry about anything else anymore.  He said he only worries about Laura.  Don’t sweat the small stuff, he tells me. 

Doug, Debbie and Shelly have reorganized their lives and priorities to deal with Laura’s on-going seizures.  Laura needs to be with someone 24 hours a day.  They make sure that she is never alone.  When she has a seizure, someone is always there to ensure her safety and reassure her that she will be okay.  They have so much love.  To watch them, one would have a hard time comprehending the enormous emotional burden they all carry each day.  Martha Washington wrote, “I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”  I know that Doug, Debbie, Laura and Shelly never saw this quote from our first president’s wife, but they validate her idea each day.  I have always loved my brother and his family, but my pride and respect for them has grown beyond anything I could ever have imagined.

Laura’s doctors have not given us a prognosis, but our family is confident that Laura will be the lovely, independent, caring person that she always was.  This path to total recovery is taking a while, but we know that she will be fine and fully recovered someday soon.

In the meantime, Laura needs your prayers.  Her family needs your prayers too.  Laura also needs leave donations from federal civil servants so that she can retain her medical insurance.  We know that she will return to work someday, and the leave donations will help tide her over until she’s ready to rejoin the workforce. 

Thank you for caring and praying.   Thank you for the leave donations.  We will never know the full extent of the outpouring of goodwill.  We will never know how many people around the world have prayed for Laura.   We just know that our family has been embraced by many people who want to help.  And we thank you for that.

Leave Donation Information:

For NASA civil servants, log into WebTads and select “leave balances”.  Then scroll down to the bottom of the screen and select “Donate Leave Within NASA”.  Laura’s full name is Laura Beth Williams and her center is Goddard.

For those civil servants with other agencies, you need the following information for OPM form 630.  This form needs to be completed by the employee and then given to their Payroll/HR dept to certify that donated leave is available. The form then should be faxed to the NASA NSSC at 866-779-6772.  The information you need for that form is:

Laura Beth Williams
Code 403
Flight Project Directorate
Goddard Space Flight Center
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
8800 Greenbelt Road
Greenbelt, MD 20771

Cards to Laura:

Laura Beth Williams, 10630 Hesperian Drive, Laurel, MD  20723