Help Alice get a Service Dog

Hi,

My name is Hayley, and I am Alice’s mom. The sweet little one pictured above is Alice. She turned three this past February.

When Alice was just two-years old, we learned that she suffers from seizures. Since that terrible day, we’ve discovered that Alice not only has several types of seizures, but that she also has genetic mutations and some developmental delays related to her seizures.

One of the types of seizures is called Atonic or Drop seizures. That means that Alice can be walking and suddenly she’ll just fall. She’s been falling a lot lately.

Alice also suffers from atypical absence seizures, which means she will be doing something and suddenly stop. She could be walking, running, talking, singing, playing, anything at all. Anywhere at all.

The episodes Alice has in her sleep can be especially difficult. They cause her to wake in confusion, jerking and screaming. After all of her episodes she becomes disoriented, off balance, and understandably extremely tired.

Alice is currently being seen by a neurologist, a geneticist, and a speech therapist.

We are raising money to get Alice an ADA certified service dog.

A service dog can be trained to help Alice both physically and mentally after drop or absence seizures, alert us when she is having an episode⎯even in her sleep⎯and provide the comfort Alice needs after seizures occur.

ADA certified service dogs are very expensive and not covered by medical insurance, so we’ve been looking at all the different options. What we’ve learned is that to obtain, train, and place the dog with us it is going to cost anywhere between $17,000-$30,000.

That range is a ballpark. Once we officially get placed with an agency, we will update the goal accordingly. Any additional funds we receive after meeting the goal, or getting placed with an official agency, will be used towards any additional medical expenses Alice has that aren’t covered under insurance.

Any donations would be very welcome and greatly appreciated.