Isabella Menards 4 Paws Travel

My daughter Isabella (Bella) was born with several "issues", she started out being diagnosed with heart problems, immediately started having seizures but was misdiagnosed for 6 years. At 6 years of age she had a seizure that lasted 30 minutes, during which she was blue the entire time. This caused brain damage that cannot be reversed. She has also been diagnosed with Juvenile Dementia due to the seizures, Autism, Essential Tremors and as Bella says a lot of other "little" problems. Our family motto is "no matter how bad we think our problems are remember, it could be worse". Bella is so excited to have been approved for a multi-purpose service dog. Bella is the light in our family and her literalness is what keeps us laughing through the pain. Bella has had 2 surgeries to try to decrease her seizures. She had a VNS placed in her chest that sends an electrical shock through her Vagel Nerve to her brain. It sends an electrical shock every 45 seconds for 7 seconds to her brain. On January 10th, 2018 she had a Corpus Callosotomy, basically they cut her brain in half to try to decrease the amount of seizures she has.  Once we got home from her brain surgery we noticed that Bella was not eating. She actually lost almost 10 pounds in 19 days. Therefore, the doctors decided it best for her to have a feeding tube placed through her abdomen to her stomach. Right now she is fed through her feeding tube 18 hours a day.

Please read the following that Bella helped me write for her fundraising form;

    Hi, my name is Isabella Menard, my friends call me Bella. I am 14 years old and in the 8th grade. I have Epilepsy, Juvenile Dementia because of my seizures (that means I forget things sometimes, like what eggs are called and what a water fountain is called), I also have Autism, heart problems and a whole lot of "little" problems. I have been approved to receive a Service Dog through 4 Paws for Ability and I am SO EXCITED!!!!!  The only thing is that my family and I have to fundraiser $5,000 so that I can go train with my service dog for 2 weeks. The Service Dog will help out so much, it will be able to tell my mom, sister or my teachers BEFORE I have a seizure! Cool right! This will help so they can make sure I am safe and that I do not get hurt. Also it  will help stop me from hurting myself. Will you please help me and my family raise the money so I can go train with my service dog?

We are going to Xenia, Ohio next year to train with Bellas Service Dog. The travel expenses to Xenia, the hotel stay(for 2 weeks), food, and certain things we will need for her service dog, will be around $5,000 or more.  If we are able to raise the money for the expenses we will need while we are up there will mean we can focus on the training rather than worrying about money.
We cannot express how much it means to our family that you all have helped make us feel secure during our training time in Xenia.