A Service Dog for Madison

Madison is a bright, artistic, and gymnastics/jiu jitsu loving kindergartener whose life was turned upside down in January 2023.

After suffering from headaches for 6 months prior, she suddenly lost consciousness at school and was non-responsive for almost 2 hours. After 3 similar episodes within three days, she was admitted to the local hospital and initially diagnosed with focal epilepsy. She had difficulty responding to medication for the first three months following her diagnosis - being treated for epilepsy and migraines simultaneously. And her care was transferred to the pediatric neurology team at Johns Hopkins University hospital.

She had some brief relief between March and July before her migraines returned, and they have continued to worsen over time. She has been unable to attend a full day of school in nearly a month due to the severity of the migraines and has gone through several ER visits and multiple hospital admissions during this time.

She just returned home after another weeklong stay at Hopkins for additional EEG monitoring and trying to finally break the status migrainosus. During this stay, we learned she was likely misdiagnosed with epilepsy, and instead has a rare form of complex migraine that causes slowing of portions of her brain that affect cognition, motor control, vision, and consciousness.

Unfortunately, this type of migraine is extremely rare in the general population, but even more so in children. Madison's symptoms appear stroke like when her migraines become severe. Her speech can be slurred and she can rapidly lose the ability to hold herself up/walk, and eventually can lose consciousness. There are very few medication options until she is a teenager. While our main course of treatment is to prevent triggers, hers occur in every day life. And being so young, she has a hard time identifying why she feels bad until it is severe enough to need emergency treatment. She is unable to eat lunch in a cafeteria, play at recess or indoor gym class, go to see a movie, and many many other normal childhood activities.

A service dog can drastically improve Madison's quality of life and independence since she currently needs to have an adult within eyesight at all times. A migraine service dog can alert to a severe episode minutes to hours before it occurs. They can also provide mobility assistance when she starts to lose control by helping her get to a safe area to lay down or even bracing her fall. They can also alert nearby adults to an episode when she is unable to call out for help.

Training a service dog requires thousands of hours of careful socialization, obedience training, and task specific training before the dog is ready to work. $35k is on the low end of the donation required for a service dog agency to place a dog with a family, and includes the cost of the puppy, travel for training, and the training programs themselves over the course of 18 months.

We are on a waitlist for a few upcoming service dog litters to begin this process. This is a huge financial burden to our family, but one that will greatly improve Madison's quality of life and her overall safety as she gets older. We sincerely appreciate any help towards this goal.

Thank you.