We can’t even imagine how terrifying this was! In an exclusive interview with Closer Weekly, The Bachelorette alum Trista Sutter opened up about the seizure she suffered back in June and how it impacted herself, her husband of nearly 14 years, Ryan Sutter, and their two children — eight-year-old daughter, Blakesley Grace, and 10-year-old son, Maxwell Alston.

“I think it probably affected them the same if not more so. Ryan is a firefighter and EMT and he’s seen a lot of health-related issues happen to strangers, but to have it happen to your wife of almost 14 years in a whole other ball game. He wrote a blog about it afterwards and did an Instagram post about it. I think for me it was eye-opening because going through something like that, you clearly question — or at least I did — question your mortality and the decisions you make and how you live your life, who you live it with, and all of that — and thinking about the fact that Ryan was right next to me watching it happen — I just woke up and was told I had a seizure, so I think there’s that component of fear that I didn’t experience personally,” Trista shared while promoting Honeywell Air Purifiers.

“Of course, for the kids, it was traumatizing to say the least. I ended up falling over when we were sitting down, and I ended up on [my daughter] and I can’t even imagine being eight years old and my mother having a seizure kind of on top of me. Ryan moved me off of her, and then Max was watching from the background, and you think your parents are immortal — you think that they’re untouchable — and to see something like that can happen with an otherwise healthy parent is life-changing. They still until this day constantly worry about me,” she continued.

“We just went to Zion National Park and we hiked the Narrows, which at this time of year is not treacherous I would say, but it’s definitely an experience. They were my biggest cheering crowd. They were like, ‘Mom, you can do it!’ and I think the whole way through, they were like, ‘Are you okay?’ I’m in really good health so it’s definitely been a life-changing thing, but I think also it’s opened up a really great line of communication between us that we can talk about the reality that we are not immortal and we can get sick. We can have these health-related things happen to us and we just have to take it one day at a time and be there for each other.”

Fortunately, the reality star is doing much better today. “I followed up with a neurologist in Denver who specializes in seizures and underwent a bunch of tests, and everything came back negative, thankfully. So as of now, I’m basically back to — the way that she put it was, my risk of having a seizure is essentially what it was prior to having my first seizure, which makes me feel pretty confident that it was a fluke and it won’t happen again. Of course I don’t know that to be 100 percent true and no one can, but I think since then I’ve definitely been more aware of stressful situations because I think stress played a big part in why I had my seizure,” she shared.

“I don’t have those answers exactly because like I said, the results I’ve gotten so far say that everything is fine, so I don’t have an exact diagnosis as to why it happened, but I can tell you that just in my gut, I feel that stress played a part in it and panicky situations, so I’ve definitely taken steps to make sure to be more aware of my stress levels and not take on too much and be better about saying ‘no’ and really focusing on being present in the moment since then.”

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Trista couldn’t be more thrilled to have teamed up with Honeywell Air Purifiers. “I am so thankful to Honeywell Air Purifiers because they have not only been able to help us with the air purification in our home, they also really educated me as a mom on the fact that at least keeping the windows closed in the morning hour is very important because that’s when the pollen and dust and everything in the air tends to be flowing in the wind,” the mother-of-two stated.

“That’s been a huge thing. They capture 99.97% of pollutants from the air that goes through the filter, so I would say that’s actually a pretty good ratio and it’s a brand recommended by allergists so you have that extra piece of mind. I am so thankful to be able to partner with them and share some of the tips that I’ve learned with moms and dads and kids alike out there who are just like me and Max who suffer from allergies.”

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