Donate to Empower Ari with a Service Dog

I'm seeking support on behalf of my dear friend Ari. She's an incredible human being, with several less than incredible medical conditions. She's got Celiac's (which is annoying and expensive enough on its own), EDS (Ehler-Danlos Syndrome), and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Sydrome, better known as POTS.

If you're like me, you probably haven't heard of POTS until you meet someone who has it. The short explanation is that POTS effects your blood pressure and heart rate and comes with a whole slew of nasty symptoms that depending on the severity can make it hard to function. You know how sometimes when you stand up too fast and get a head rush and you have to sit back down again? It's kind of like that but on steroids. If you want to learn more about POTS here is a good resource:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16560-postural-orthostatic-tachycardia-syndrome-pots

And just like Ari, who doesn't like to half ass anything, neither do her symptoms. Depending on the roll of the dice each day, Ari frequently struggles with daily tasks many take for granted like showering and cooking. Now I live across the country from Ari, but we talk every day. Sometimes things can be a bit quiet if she's not having a great day, or because of the time zone difference, or many other things. Most of the time I don't worry myself too much about it, but there's always a thought nagging in the back of my head that she fell and hit her head or worse.

Because of the work schedules of the lovely folks Ari lives with, she spends a lot of time alone during the day. Ari is a fully capable individual as long as she's having a good day. That being said, even good days are at risk of becoming bad days if she accidentally over does it.

Ari is looking to get a service dog. A service dog would be able to help her with counter balance when she's leaning or wobbly, provide leg compression when needed by lying on her legs, providing medical alerts for her heart rate/other symptoms before her tracker catches it, grabbing items for her when she's weak, and alerting others to the need for help if it comes to that. And added bonus, service dogs can be trained to detect gluten in foods too!

If you didn't already know, getting a service dog is quite expensive. Ari would be over the moon if her health magically improved and she could get a 40 hour a week job, which is not possible in her current condition. Since there's no gofundme me options for magical cures, we're settling for seeking help to get the start up costs for a service dog.

So, will you help Ari get a bit more stability in her life while simultaneously helping me worry less by donating what you can towards this cause?