Helping to train Maria’s service dog “Rusty”

Hi! My name is Maria Elmore and I have recently been diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome(POTS).POTS can affect people in many different ways but, POTS has impacted my life tremendously making me faint, get dizzy, have brain fog, and many more symptoms because my heart rate spikes are very high.

The first time this truly impacted my life was when I drove from my boyfriend's house to go get us some food. I fainted while driving myself to go get the food and side-swiped a car in his neighborhood, That is when I knew something was truly wrong. My heart rate hits 135bpm from standing up and when I go up a flight of stairs it hits 180bpm. Because of this, some days I can't get out of bed or am wheelchair-bound. POTS also causes me to get very nauseous and on the days all of my symptoms together cause me to not be able to function.

A service dog would help alert me before the fainting episodes would happen and if needed, get help when I do faint. They can help with so much more that's just two major tasks they can do. I hope that getting this service dog will help me be able to have a normal life again but, the training costs around $16,000 and unfortunately insurance doesn't help with it, even though getting a service dog would improve my quality of life. Unfortunately, going to school and with the disability, I am unable to work a normal 9-5 job so it will be hard to afford this training.

I’m creating this GoFundMe to help cover the initial cost of owning Rusty and the training. Any little bit helps! If you would rather buy a gift for Rusty here is his Amazon wish list. Thank you for every little bit! https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/214HHBAKCV7BI?ref_=wl_share