Calvin is my name.  I am eight years old.

I live in Bangor, Maine, with my family .  My family is made up of my daddy, my stepmom, me, and my big sister, Starla, who is eleven.  

We also have a dog, an English bulldog named Toby.  He is very old and has bad breath.  He is dark brown and white.  Lots of people say he's really ugly, but I think he's cute.  He's a good buddy.

I am like most kids, but I have seizures.  I've had 'em since I was very small.  I fell down the stairs and hit my head.  Ever since, I have "blackout spells"; when I wake up from them, my muscles hurt, and I have a bad headache.  Daddy says I have something called epilepsy, which means I have seizures, but I really don't remember anything when I wake up excepting that I hurt all over.

I take medicine to help the seizures/blackouts.  I don't have as many as I used to, but I still have to take my medicine every day.

Other than that, I'm okay.  I just wish the other kids would stop picking on me and calling me bad names like "Seizure-Boy" or "Retarded".  There's nothing wrong with my brain other than the seizures: I'm just as smart as the other kids!  I also can't play sports because if I were to fall or hit my head, there could be problems, so the doctors say that I shouldn't play sports like baseball, football, soccer, or basketball.  Phooey!

Instead, I play things like chess or games like Scrabble or Uno.  I am very smart; I get all A's in school.  Mama (as I call my stepmom) and daddy are both very proud of me.

My real mom died when I was a baby.  I really never knew her excepting in pictures or videos.  She had something called Hodgkin's disease.  She was very sick.  Daddy misses her too, but then he met Linda, and now Linda is my mom.  

She is very nice.  I like having a mom again. 

Starla remembers mom, but I don't.  She is kinda like my mom; she takes care of me when Linda is at work or when we're not at school.  She's in the sixth grade.  (I'm in the second grade.)  I love her; we get along really good.  She loves to do things with me, and that makes me very happy.  I don't have many friends because of my seizures.

Besides playing games like chess, Uno, or backgammon, I love to draw, write stories or poems, play on the Internet (our computer is filtered, so we don't get all the bad stuff; there's many bad things on the Internet), and spend time with my family (and with Toby, our dog, of course).  I am a very busy, happy boy.  I also love to go to church.  We are Catholic; we kids go to catechism on Saturdays, and we go to Mass (church) on Sundays.  I love learning about God, Jesus, and Mary.

Well, it's about time I go to bed, so I can go to Mass in the morning.  I will write in here again; 'til later, take care, and I will write soon!

~Love, your new friend in Maine, Calvin R. Johnson, aged eight.