Imagine yourself as a child in your grade school classroom. Without warning, you fall to the floor in convulsions, only to awake with no recollection of the episode, just confused eyes staring back at you. Like all young girls, Katie Kornfield faced obstacles growing up. But she had more than the average girl.

Katie suffered from epileptic seizures.

Between the treatments, the side effects – hair loss, black circles under her eyes and sickness, all which embarrassed her greatly – and the seizures, Katie could hardly make friends let alone live a normal life. Her self-esteem was shot.

“It wasn’t great growing up. I had low, low self-esteem. I was dealing with this disorder that not a lot of people talked about. And the medications that my doctors were using to try and control my seizures often had side effects that were sometimes worse than actually having the seizures itself,” Katie expressed.

That’s when Olympic Figure Skating Gold Medalist Scott Hamilton came along. Or at least his story did. Scott had a rare illness growing up that forced him to walk with braces and it wasn’t until he took up figure skating that he was able to walk on his own. Katie heard this story and thought, “If figure skating helped Scott to walk maybe it could help me with my seizures.”

And so with this inspiration – and guidance from her neurologist – Katie took up figure skating. When she was eight-years-old she was chosen to dance in the famous Sun Valley Ice Shows. And who was headlining the event? Katie’s hero, Scott Hamilton! It was Katie’s dream come true.

Today, Katie Kornfield is 35-years-old and gliding smoothly on the ice and off. She joined us on Katie as a proud US Figure Skating gold medalist and guess who joined us via a video message? Scott Hamilton! All these years later he was thrilled to tell Katie how proud he was of her impressive accomplishments and he wished her continued success.

Katie is well on her way to achieving double gold medal status in US Figure Skating, but there’s one more area of her life where she is also excelling.

“I’m seizure free today. I’m off all of my medication and I have been for the past three years,” Katie states proudly.

It’s important for Katie to share her story and her gift of figure skating with others. Katie is a US Figure Skating instructor and she often passes along an inspiring message to her students.

“I want all little girls out there to know that they matter and kids who are battling epilepsy and their families to know that it can and it does get better.”

Katie is a woman who we think should be famous.