New Orleans Saints LB Demario Davis Shares Story of Daughter’s Seizure

To say New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis has a good perspective about life and football, it would be a severe understatement.

The former Arkansas State Red Wolf is entering his 12th season in the NFL, and sixth with the Saints.  His career earnings are more the $61 million dollars so it would be easy to think Davis could get caught up in the glamor of the NFL life.

You’d be wrong.

Following the Saints 16-15 Opening Day victory over the Tennessee Titans, Davis entered the post-game press conference but didn’t answer or take any football questions.  He spent 5:30 minutes discussing what happened with his family and specifically his daughter last Friday.

READ THE TRANSCRIPT OF DEMARIO DAVIS'

POST GAME PRESS CONFERENCE

A lot of people don't know this, but on Friday, my daughter, she’s four years old had her third epilepsy seizure attack. This is the same daughter who survived retinoblastoma. She's been totally clear for that. But she had her third seizure.  If she had no seizures for one more month then she would have been off to medicine, but now we have to start that clock all the way over. It was on Friday. And we were a bunch of kids over the house and she was planning I noticed something was off.

My wife saw it and we took her in a room didn't want to cause a scene and she started to foam at the mouth and it was her worst seizure.  For 30 minutes she seized. She wouldn’t calm.

We had to call the paramedics, and they came and so over the course of time it had been a total of 30 minutes they got her in. My wife got in with the paramedics. I got behind them driving. You can imagine all of the thoughts racing through your mind, the last sight you see of your daughter is she's totally out of it.

When we got to the hospital, my wife told me that my daughter stopped breathing twice.

Of course, I’m praying we get to the hospital, they give her a bunch of medicine, the seizures stop and she's laying there.

And at this point, if she has seizures for 30 minutes you start to fear there could be developmental issues that could mess with the brain. You know, she stopped breathing if there was no oxygen going into her brain, you starting to think that her speech could be slurred or anything or worse.

So we prayed and we prayed, and she had medicine and my wife and I had to stay overnight at the hospital. And in the middle of the night, probably about three o'clock I heard a knock, and the knock was my daughter.

When I heard my daughter talk in the middle of night, she doesn't have any developmental issues. She doesn't have any slurred speech. You know prior to this.

She woke up talking clearer than she was talking before.  Anyone dealing with epilepsy knows that it takes a few days for them to come back. You know, they usually can get back to normal wherever they were. But it takes a couple of days. They're groggy it's a lot because of what their body is like, it's like the TV just static in your brain.

She was talking clearer than before and it was three o'clock when we heard a talk we let her talk for about 20 minutes or so, and said “Hey baby it's nighttime, time to go back to sleep.” You know and I just prayed I started saying Praise God Praise God.

The next morning when she got up my daughter was so sharp.  She was able to talk to me and her mom. I mean clear conversations. She is sharp for a four-year-old. No stuttering, all her words clear.  I said my daughter is already sharp, she was sharper than before. And if any of you were able to have a conversation with my daughter, you wouldn't know anything had ever happened.

So we had a birthday party for my seven-year-old daughter. The day she was released from the hospital, she came back home and it was as if nothing was happening. She was playing with the kids the day before. And she had the worst seizure that she had ever had. And the next day she's back out there and playing with the kids. Now of course we can't let her get overstimulated. We have to keep bringing her in, had to keep cooling her down. Can't let her do too much just because of protocol.

And I want to share that we get to play this game and it's great. And there are so many amazing things that have happened in that game. And everybody wants to hear about him but we could lead his game we go back to being regular people. And regular people are living life and people are waiting for a knock.

WATCH FULL DEMARIO DAVIS PRESS CONFERENCE

So on the way, man I'm nervous, but I'm praying and I'm trusting and I'm believing and I'm asking for my daughter to make it through. I'm asking that she's better than before. And God gave me just what I asked for plus some. I was blown away.  And at that point, The game was gonna take care of itself.

Now I'm gonna be here to talk about football next week.