By Julie L Hutchison | President, Co-Founder and Chelsea's Mother
Thank you to all of you who support this very important project. With your help, and others like you, The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation has just paid our 95th grant for seizure-response dogs. These amazing animals are such a blessing to those who struggle to have some sort of normalcy in their lives when dealing the unpredictible seizures.
Seizure-response service dogs can really be trained to the specific needs of their handler. While no trainer can truly guarantee that a service dog will learn to alert before the onset of a seizure, with very specific temperament training, the likelihood of this happening increases greatly. Some of the response tasks trained could be barking to alert a parent or caregiver of a seizure, pushing an alert button, block from stepping into traffic during a "roaming" seizure, bringing emergency medications, swiping a VNS magnet to lessen or stop a seizure...and the list goes on.
"I am 34 years old and have had uncontrolled epilepsy for the past 14 years. I have been on many different medications and have had two VNS surgeries. I have been on the ketogenic diet, but sill have many seizures each day. I finally agreed to get a seizure-response dog, but was unable to afford the enormous price tag. That is where CHF stepped in to help. I now have Brody and not only is he responding, but alerting as well. I could not ask for more. When I was at my lowest, CHF stepped in and offered help."
We appreciate your support more than we can expressin words! We have a few other Globalgiving projects we'd like to share with you.
Epilepsy Awareness Day at Disneyland
A Seizure-Response Service Dog for Zachary
A Seizure-Response Service Dog for Parker
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