This project will change the life of a beautiful little girl who struggles with epilepsy. The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation is currently fundraising to be able to provide a $2500 grant to Natalyn's seizure-response service dog. Seizure response dogs are a special type of service dog, specifically trained to help someone who has epilepsy or a seizure disorder. Due to the differing needs between each case, every potential seizure dog receives specialized training
Natalyn's family lives in a constant state of exhausting worry and stress and believe that having a seizure-response dog (SRD) will mean more freedom for her. Even only at 4 years old, she wants to do the things her friends are able to do. Often Natalyn's seizures present as wandering type seizures and her SRD is being trained to block her to keep her safe from stairwells, streets, etc. He is being trained to recognize when a seizure is occurring and alert family members.
This project will allow a little girl to be a little girl. Having a SRD will help keep Natalyn safe and will bring some peace to his family. Some of the specialty tasks being trained will be learning to recognize a seizure and alerting the family, bracing a fall and protecting him during a seizure. In addition, her SRD will be trained to bring emergency meds to an adult attending to Natalyn if necessary.
Our goal is to get life-saving measures in line for all who could benefit from them. By raising SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy) awareness, our hope is to get epilepsy research on the radar. Most believe that if you have seizures you can take a pill and be cured. Truth is that only 1/3 of those with seizures are controlled by medication. For many, multiple seizures are an every-day part of their life. 1 in 26 will be diagnosed with epilepsy in their lifetime.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
