A boy and his seizure dog

Editor's note: In the Human Factor, we profile survivors who have overcome the odds. Confronting a life obstacle — injury, illness or other hardship --- they tapped their inner strength and found resilience they didn't know they possessed. This week, meet a little boy who wrote a book to raise funds to get a dog that would alert his parents that he was having a seizure. His book has charmed and informed many more people than expected.

My name is Evan Moss and I'm a 9-year-old boy who likes Pokemon! A lot!

When I was 1 month old I started having seizures, and when I was 4 years old I went to Dr. Weiner and he gave me brain surgery to stop my seizures. It stopped my seizures for two years but not my appetite, it just kept on growing! It is still growing.

After two years my seizures came back and now they are longer. When was little I had like 15 small seizures a day. Now I have 10-minute seizures but I only have one every 14 days or so.

I have two dogs. One is Dinky and the other is Mindy. Dinky is our family dog and he really belongs to my sister, Aria. Mindy is my seizure dog.

Getting Mindy took a long time. We had to raise a lot of money and wait almost a year to meet her and then we had to drive from Virginia to Ohio to get Mindy.

Having Mindy is very fun! When I first got Mindy it was pretty hard because she didn't listen to me, but now she does and she knows a lot of commands. I've even taught her some new things, like climbing up into the fort section of my swing set. The best thing about having Mindy is playing with her and I love racing with her. If she is on her leash she runs right next to me but I know she can run really fast.

I have epilepsy but I can do some extraordinary things like ride a zip line! Epilepsy can also be bad, though, and I've heard about some seizures that can kill you! Sometimes I worry that will happen to me but I don't think about that too much, plus I have Mindy to help me.

Mindy barks when I have a seizure so my parents will know. When I have a seizure, my mom and dad give me medicine to help stop the seizure. People ask me a lot what it feels like but it's hard to describe and sometimes I don't remember having a seizure.

If I met someone who just found out they have epilepsy I'd say, "Don't worry, you're not in this alone!"