Protecting Our Sunshine
Donation protected
“Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.”
Our story began a little over a year ago when our (then) 3 year old daughter screamed "Brinny's sick, Brinny's sick". I looked over and saw my beautiful 16 month old baby girl laying in her vomit on our tile floor not moving. My husband flew over the couch (literally flew, I have never seen him move like that) and picked her up, she was completely limp in his arms, her skin was grey, her lips were blue, my heart stopped and broke at the same time, I honestly thought I lost my precious baby. Her breathing was so shallow we could barely hear it and we could not get her to respond to us. Does this sound like a seizure to you??? Well it was, it is, it is a combination of different types of seizures. Up until that point I thought seizures were this loud, can't miss body convulsive action. I had never heard of SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Siezures), never heard of the Chelsea Hutchison Foundation, or Danny Did Foundation (two fantastic foundations in honor of kids who passed away due to seizures). I had no idea my baby girl could have a seizure 4 feet away from me and make no sounds and be in that kind of danger. After months of emergency room scares with seizures limited to fever events (called febrile seizures), our hearts sank when a month ago she had her first unprovoked seizure. We have come to understand the implications of this for our daughters safety. What her doctors, and our experiences, have taught us is that this means that she is at risk of having a seizure during the night or in one of the brief moments of the day that our eyes are not on her. Those brief windows of time can be enough for her to stop breathing, and for us to lose her. We have been instructed that the best means to ensure her safety is to get her a seizure response dog. As much as we would love to add a dog to our household for any reason, these highly trained animals come with price tags that are well outside of our means.
With the money we raise we will get a seizure response dog, travel expenses since the limited trainers who train this skill are on the other side of the country. We also hope to get a monitoring system set up for the 9 months to year that it takes to train our furry, four legged super hero.
Our story began a little over a year ago when our (then) 3 year old daughter screamed "Brinny's sick, Brinny's sick". I looked over and saw my beautiful 16 month old baby girl laying in her vomit on our tile floor not moving. My husband flew over the couch (literally flew, I have never seen him move like that) and picked her up, she was completely limp in his arms, her skin was grey, her lips were blue, my heart stopped and broke at the same time, I honestly thought I lost my precious baby. Her breathing was so shallow we could barely hear it and we could not get her to respond to us. Does this sound like a seizure to you??? Well it was, it is, it is a combination of different types of seizures. Up until that point I thought seizures were this loud, can't miss body convulsive action. I had never heard of SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Siezures), never heard of the Chelsea Hutchison Foundation, or Danny Did Foundation (two fantastic foundations in honor of kids who passed away due to seizures). I had no idea my baby girl could have a seizure 4 feet away from me and make no sounds and be in that kind of danger. After months of emergency room scares with seizures limited to fever events (called febrile seizures), our hearts sank when a month ago she had her first unprovoked seizure. We have come to understand the implications of this for our daughters safety. What her doctors, and our experiences, have taught us is that this means that she is at risk of having a seizure during the night or in one of the brief moments of the day that our eyes are not on her. Those brief windows of time can be enough for her to stop breathing, and for us to lose her. We have been instructed that the best means to ensure her safety is to get her a seizure response dog. As much as we would love to add a dog to our household for any reason, these highly trained animals come with price tags that are well outside of our means.
With the money we raise we will get a seizure response dog, travel expenses since the limited trainers who train this skill are on the other side of the country. We also hope to get a monitoring system set up for the 9 months to year that it takes to train our furry, four legged super hero.
Organizer
Angela Cavender-Simmons
Organizer
Friendswood, TX
