Bangor halfway mark for trekker Kansas woman on 9,000-mile walk to benefit epilepsy research

BANGOR – A Kansas woman says her arrival in the city Sunday marks the halfway point of a nearly 9,000-mile walk around America to raise awareness of epilepsy research and treatment.

Karla Brown, 39, said she began walking in Seattle on March 4, 2001, to mark her 20th anniversary without suffering the debilitating effects of epileptic seizures after surgery.

She doesn’t take pledges. She just walks.

“I have no idea how much has been raised because of [my walk],” Brown said in an interview Sunday evening in Bangor. “I tell people to send their donations directly to the foundations.”

The McPherson, Kan., woman said her original goal was to walk nearly 3,800 miles from Seattle to Washington, D.C., where she planned to walk directly to the front door of the Epilepsy Foundation of America headquarters.

But with just 60 miles to go on her walk, Brown concluded she wasn’t ready to stop.

“I just decided I was having too much fun,” she said.

So she headed north with the idea of making Bangor her easternmost stop, then heading west to Iowa, south to Louisiana, then east again to Orlando, Fla., and finishing the walk in the nation’s capital in September 2003.

The kindness of others has been the key to Brown’s success in her travels.

In Freeport, L.L. Bean gave Brown a free pair of hiking shoes – her 12th pair of shoes during the trip. The mail-order company also provided her with a shirt, fanny pack and free meal.

The most important gifts Brown said she has received are some she may never see: The purpose of the trip is to raise money indirectly for epilepsy foundations and to increase awareness of the disease. Epilepsy is a recurrent disorder of the nervous system, characterized by seizures of excessive brain activity that cause mental and physical dysfunction.

For 19 years, Brown suffered from epileptic seizures. By the time she was in her teens, the seizures had increased to two or more a day despite some 20 pills she used to battle them.

On Aug. 27, 1981, Brown underwent brain surgery at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle to curtail the problem that had consumed most of her life.

In 2001, Brown decided it was time to celebrate.

“I had gone 20 years without a seizure,” she said. “I no longer needed any of the medications. I decided I wanted to help people who didn’t have the opportunities that I’d had.”

She quit her job as a customer service representative at an insurance company in McPherson, sold her Chevy S-10 pickup and, after moving some of her belongings into storage, sold her house, too.

Along the way, Brown has stopped to speak to school classes, chambers of commerce, organizations and anyone willing to listen, all the while urging people to contribute to their area epilepsy foundations.

The gifts that she has received include food, drink, shelter and, on rare occasions, a ride. She is scheduled to stop in Palmyra on Friday to pick up her mail. Every few weeks she arranges for people to send letters, gift certificates and other supplies to a post office on her travel route.

“My story is very minor compared to other stories out there,” she said, “but it means a lot to me to do what I can to help out.”

The epilepsy chapter for northern New England may be contacted through the Epilepsy Foundation of Vermont, P.O. Box 6292, Rutland, Vt. 05702, or by phone at (802) 775-1686. Brown can be reached by e-mail at kbwalk@mymailstation.com.