My Sister, My Hero

I'd like to tell you about my sister Rebecca Jane Nicholls and more importantly why I owe her my life.

Rebecca was born on 30th June 1987, a third daughter for my parents, Wendy and Malcolm and a younger sister for Hannah and myself. Not knowing that Rebecca would be born with Downs was a massive shock for my family but it was also the fact that we didn't know anything about Down's syndrome that was daunting. It must have been a very worrying but happy time for my parents. Last year on an ordinary afternoon, Rebecca and myself were getting ready to go shopping. I was in the middle of straightening her hair when I suddenly had an Epileptic seizure. I hit my head in the fall and knocked myself unconscious. I have been an Epileptic for about 7 years now and up until that moment Rebecca has only seen me have a mild one and there have always been people around. I have spoken to her in the past about the procedure in which you need to carry out after I've had a seizure, for example putting me in the recovery position. Little did I know that she had remembered it all, and more.

I woke up on her bed a few minutes later in the recovery position with a blanket over me. She told me that as soon as I stopped shaking she had picked me up, (me being 10 stone) and had lifted me onto her bed. She had checked that I was still breathing, called my mum at work and alerted the neighbours who had called an ambulance. I hate to think what the situation might have turned out like if Rebecca hadn't been there, and for that I can't ever thank her enough.

Rebecca is now 22 and has just completed her Life Skills course at a mainstream college and is now working at the supermarket Morrisons. Since working there we have noticed a change in her, she is more confident and out spoken and and it's great to see her blossom.

I'm so grateful to her for helping me. I'd like to think I'd know what to do in that type of situation as it can be very scary but that didn't seem to affect her at the time. Not only is she my little sister but she is quite simply my hero.

By Jenny Nicholls