Piper's Life saving Dog !!

Hi everyone, my name Is Ashly Wynne. I am starting a Go-fund me account for my niece Piper Stroud.

Piper is 7 years old. She is a Strong, Sweet, Kind, Loving and Sassy little girl! In November of 2022, Piper was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. For those who don’t know, type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition that typically appears in childhood. With type 1 diabetes, the pancreas produces little to no insulin, which is literally required for life. Without insulin, you cannot live.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for type 1 diabetes, she will have this condition for the rest of her life, or until the Lord heals her. If you’ve ever known anyone with type 1, you know that these kids/ adults are rockstars! They endure so much just to stay alive. Piper receives insulin injections for every meal, a shot for bedtime, extra shots for correcting high blood sugars, finger pricks, and Dexcom Sticks. Her typical day contains a very minimum of 4 shots and depending on the day this number can increase to double digits. Piper gets woken up in the middle of the night to either drink a juice to save her life, or she gets woken up for a finger stick or an additional shot because her BG is too high. Can you even imagine getting pricked with a needle about 10 times a day every day? In order to live??

Diabetes doesn’t just affect the person with the illness, it’s literally a family disease. Once diagnosed, you rally the troops/family because it quite literally takes a village to care for these kids. Everything changes. The mental, physical, and financial strains it places on the family is unreal. Even if you get to physically rest for a few minutes, the mental strain never stops. It’s always on your mind. You can’t truly sleep because you are worried and even worse, if you don’t wake up to a low blood sugar alarm, it could cost you your child’s life. Babysitters are a thing of the past, because unless they are trained in diabetic care, it’s just not safe to leave your little one with a sitter. It’s such a fight to keep these babies alive, but it’s one worth fighting. These kids are incredible and we would do ANYTHING for our Piper.

The next thing I would like to talk about is the financial costs of type 1. If you don’t know it’s horribly expensive. You are now responsible for hospital stays, diabetic education classes, doctor appointments, endocrinologist appointments, insulin, needles, syringes, glucometers, glucometer strips, lancet needles, dexcoms, dexcom supplies, cellphones so you can monitor your kid’s blood sugars, new groceries/foods that your child will eat, and not to mention the cost of brand new insulin pumps! Needless to say, this isn’t something I would wish upon anyone.

Although there is no cure, Type 1 has come a LONG WAY. There’s so much technology and resources available to help these kids/adults live and hopefully achieve some sort of normalcy. One of those resources is a service dog. There are now dogs available called, diabetic alert dogs (DADs). DADs are trained and exposed to insulin scents at birth. This helps ensure they can recognize what it smells like when your child’s blood sugar is too high, or too low. DADs are trained to keep their person safe and alert the child or family of these life threatening occurrences. As amazing as technology is, it fails. Especially in the summer!!! Piper has had some very dangerous low blood sugars that we weren’t aware of because the adhesives to her dexcom loves to just fall off in the pool/lake. These incredible pups give their person an extra safety net of protection, some peace, and may even help the family sleep a little better! There are programs available that offer to give them for free, but the waitlist can be anywhere from 5-15 years (if you get lucky)!

God is so good and has put this blessing in front of us. Faith and Jordan have had the opportunity to get a DAD for Piper! Piper has been experiencing anxiety when her blood sugar goes high, which is actually one of the signs/symptoms that Jordan and Faith first recognized before being diagnosed. Since she has been dealing with some anxiety due to her blood sugar, they decided a furry friend would be an amazing support for her. Well, God opened doors. Turns out the breeder Faith contacted works with a trainer, whose son is also a type 1 diabetic. She didn’t know this before reaching out, but this particular trainer just happens to ALSO specialize in training diabetic alert dogs!!! How incredible!! Would love to call it a small world, but I think we know better than that!

Since DADs require very particular training, they are HIGHLY expensive. Unfortunately, this pup will probably end up costing around $8,000! If you know the Stroud’s they both work. Faith is a Night shift nurse and Jordan just finished school and now works as an aviation mechanic. Faith has already picked up many extra shifts in order to help pay for Piper’s insulin pump. They would never ask for support, which is why I am doing it for them!

This support dog would bring SO MUCH peace. This support dog is trained to alert adults or even the child when the child becomes low. This support dog would go everywhere Piper would go. Its only Job is to make sure that Piper does not loose her life. I am not only asking, but I am also begging, please help us get Piper this life saving Dog!