Emily's Seizure Alert Service Dog

Thank you for visitng our page. My sister Emily is a college student from Boise, Idaho. She has always been sassy, and full of life, but for the past three years, she has been dealing with a very confusing, frustrating seizure disorder. Lately, her health has seemed to fall downhill.
In December of 2013, she had her first seizure during a fitness class at her high school. She was taken to the emergency room at St Luke’s Hospital in Meridian, where’d they would soon find out that she had an extreme case of carbon monoxide poisoning,  that she was very lucky to live through.
We later later found that she had a faulty catalytic converter in her Ford Ranger, and dirty exhaust was coming through her air vents for a couple of months during the winter while her car was defrosting before school. The carbon monoxide slowly replaced the oxygen in her blood, which reduced the amount of oxygen flowing to her brain, building up and causing this first seizure. Since that day, she has continued to have severe seizures.
In the past four months, Emily's seizures went from one every couple of months, to a few seizures every two weeks. She now has an amazing doctor who is working hard on her diagnosis and treatment, and an amazing not-for-profit hospital (St Luke's) who gives all their patients a chance to reduce or even forgive their medical expenses if they are unable to afford it.
When she is not recovering from these seizures, and phsycially able to, she works full-time at St Luke's. She is an Internal Trasporter, taking patients all around the hospital, getting their perscritpions and just being a friendly face for the patients to talk to. She has worked there for a little over a year, and I can’t even begin to explain how much she enjoys this job.
Hopefully, she will soon be looking into getting a job as a Certified Nursing Assistant, in order to pursue nursing in the future with St Luke's. 
Emily has had many trips as a patient at St Luke’s - too many to count. Almost all of these visits have had to do with her seizure disorder, from injuries caused from falling or injuring herself while seizing. Emily and our entire family are confused, exhausted and frustrated with being unable to find a medication that substatially helps.  She has tried many different medications, experiencing nearly every side affect from every one of them. Because of these seizures AND side-effects from her medication, she is unable to bathe or shower by herself without concern, drive, go to school, and is unable to work at this time. 

Emily recently had an experience in early February with her best friend’s black lab.  She kept losing consciousness for a few minutes, come back awake, and lose consciousness for another few minutes. This continued throughout the evening and entire night. Semper, her friend's black lab, is one of the goofiest, most hyper dogs we have ever met. Sitting in her friend's kitchen, Emily, her friend and her friend's family experienced a whole new side of Semper.
Emily felt another black-out coming on, and her friend's mom tried calling Semper to go to bed. He was very hesitant in leaving her side, and brought comfort and protection to her as she was in-and-out of consciousness. Once Emily and her friend went to bed, Semper finally gave in and went to bed as well. But, not long after he was in his separate room, he refused to stay there and ran upstairs to lay with her, watching until this spell passed. 

As we are not able to be around her 24/7, we are looking to raise money to help her afford to get a Seizure Alert/Detection Service Dog by the end of April 2017. A companion that can be with her at all times - learn and detect her seizures and passing out spells, so that she can get to a safe place to sit or lie down before she has a seizure or goes unconscious. This will lessen her hospital visits, tenfold. If she has a seizure or passes out without hurting herself, it is a victory in itself.  We want her to be able to get back out and live like a 20 year old should be living. Not couped up in the house, unable to go anywhere because she is unable to predict when the next seizure will happen. She can't wait to get back to work, doing what she loves. 

This process is not cheap, especially for an adult with a seizure disorder. It will take extensive training for the dog, and for Emily.

The money raised from this page will go towards a program that will help us find a dog that will be able to help Emily, and alert her when she is about to have a seizure or is about to pass out. This money will also go to any other expenses she will need for the dog - bed, food, supplies, service certifications, and possible travel expenses. 

Please feel free to contact me, Elaine Sterling, if you have any questions.

Thank you, and please share!