Brandi Pipes hopes to publish a book one day.
"I'm collecting stories from epileptics all over the world," she explains.
But complications from her own epilepsy make independent living, driving, and even reading impossible, NBC affiliate KPRC reported.
"Reading started hurting me," Pipes says. "Literally, I just break down and cry, like I get a headache real bad and everything and I used to love to read but now it hurts."
Since the battle began eight years ago, Texas Children's Hospital neurosurgeon Dr. Daniel Curry has performed four surgeries on Pipes.
Last month she became the first pediatric patient in Texas to get a new device, the Neuropace RNS, which is almost like a pacemaker in the brain. It is trained to recognize seizures and bring them to a halt before Brandi knows they're happening.
"This new technology allows us to place a stimulation system, that when the abnormal rhythms come up, it can be stimulated and reduced to normal rhythms without having to remove that tissue," Curry says.
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