Susan Axelrod earns Wings of Justice for her more than decade-long fight against epilepsy

WINGS OF JUSTICE

Susan Axelrod

Susan and David Axelrod's first child, Lauren, was beautiful and completely normal for the first few months of her life. Then one day, the seizures started. Sometimes the little girl would have as many as 25 terrifying episodes a day. Epilespy became a fact of life for the Axelrod family.

Though epilepsy affects 50 million people worldwide and has been known of since at least Biblical times, Susan says she was stunned by the resignation of those afflicted and their families.

"People seemed to be just accepting the status quo and I thought, 'This can't go on.' There was nobody addressing this disease with the urgency that it required," she told Al Roker on the Today Show this week. "It just made no sense."

David Axelrod, now a senior White House advisor to President Barack Obama, recalls watching Susan try to deal with Lauren's illness.

"Nothing can match the anguish of the mom of a chronically ill child," David said in an interview with Parade Magazine. "But Susan turned that anguish into action."

Susan said she would do anything for her child. And she did. She gave up graduate school and her career to become Lauren's primary caregiver. But more than that, she wanted a cure.

Susan founded Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE) in 1998. Since then, the group has raised more than $9 million in research funds and has partnered with the National Institutes of Health, the White House, and other organizations to co-sponsor workshops and conferences dedicated to educating people about epilepsy. The group has even gotten the Defense Department in on the action, convincing them to research epilepsy in war veterans.

After trying dozens of treatments ranging from drugs to invasive surgery, Lauren seems to have found a drug that works for her. She's made it almost nine years without a seizure, and though she has minor impairment in many areas, Lauren is beginning to regain functioning that her family thought was lost to her.

But Susan is quick to point out that the drug that worked for her daughter won't work for everyone suffering from seizures, and her work with CURE continues. For turning personal anguish into a crusade against ignorance and disease, we wish to acknowledge Susan Axelrod with BuzzFlash's Wings of Justice award.

For more about the condition and the foundation, click here to visit the CURE Web site.

WINGS OF JUSTICE

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Nominated by BuzzFlash staff. To see a full list of past Wings of Justice honorees, click here.

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