I need your help to get an assistance dog

Hi, firstly, THANK YOU for even reading my appeal. My name is Lindsay C. I live in Portsmouth in the U.K. The reason for my appeal really started nearly 5 years ago in late 2015. I was completing my BSc in Adult Nursing back in London and was working a Bank shift in my hospital when the patient I was working with assaulted me by grabbing me by my hair and pinning my head to the ground. There was no malice as the patient had severe learning difficulties but the damage was done.  An MRI showed I had a collapsed L4 vertebra so I had urgent spinal surgery to stabilise the injury with surgical cement. This unfortunately ended my nursing career.

After the surgery, decided to retrain and got accepted to do BSc Diagnostic Radiography. In August 2016, I moved to Portsmouth and started my new degree whilst still recovering from spinal surgery. My bad luck however had not yet ended. 6 weeks into my new degree, I slip and fracture my neck of femur and whilst awaiting surgery for this injury in hospital, my surgeon postpones my surgery after finding some areas of concern on my scan. 10 days , various tests, scans and a biopsy later, I receive the devastating diagnosis of stage 4 Burkitt's Lymphoma (highest grade (i.e. fastest growing) non-Hodgkins lymphoma), and I'd had no symptoms!! The very next day I had a PICC line put through my upper arm into my heart and the day after that,  I started a gruelling course of intense, high dose chemotherapy. I had 4 rounds of aggressive chemo, all as an in-patient. Some of the chemo had to be administered intrathecally (directly into the cerebrospinal fluid in the spinal cord) whilst fully awake. Needless to say that with my spine surgery a mear 9 months prior, this procedure was painful to say the least. After 2 of the chemo rounds I landed in hospital with neutropenic sepsis, basically, sepsis whilst having no immune system. I racked up over 80 days in hospital... 

I'm now in remission  but the last 5 years have taken a toll on my body and mind and I have been left with "chemo brain", something which for me involves, difficulty concentrating on the smallest task, trouble decision making,  short term memory trouble, word retrieval issues, long term fatigue, to name a few symptoms. I also suffer from chronic pain in my back from L4 down which has already started developing arthritis and the disc below L4 in the last 2 years alone has migrated further into my spinal cord which is causing constant pain down my left side and leg. I'm not able to sit or stand for long nor can I walk much of a distance, which I do with the use of a stick every time I have flare ups, so I relying heavily on my car. I also suffer from depression, anxiety and PTSD as a result my cancer experience and last summer got diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) to top it all off.  I have had to drop out of uni and am not able to work, as desperately as I want to.... Being in my late 30s now, I'm too young to be officially medically retired so I have been forced to rely on the benefit system which drastically reduced the money I have to live on.

In 2018, my wonderful and forward-thinking GP recommended i get a dog to help with my declining mental health. That is when i found my precious little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel - Abby - in October 2018. She saved my life at the time and gave me a purpose and a reason to carry on. With my declining mobility, I became very interested in a TV programme I came across about the various roles dogs can be trained to assist us humans with and one of the segments focused on Assistance Dogs (or service dogs). It was amazing..... I found a couple charities in the UK who could train your pet dog, free of charge to the user, to become your assistance dog as long as you and your dog meet the requirements so I discussed it with my doctors and they were all supportive of my getting my pet trained as an assistance dog and agreed it would likely improve my quality of life to a certain extent.  I did meet the requirements to qualify for their help but unfortunately,  a week before Abby was due in for her assessment with them, she had her first seizure....and now, 2 further seizures and under the care of a veterinary neurologist,  my poor Abby has been diagnosed with Idiopathic Epilepsy. The scans taken also showed that she has CM (Chiari Malformation - brain too big for the skull), the underlying condition which causes Syringomyelia (fluid filled cavities that develop withing the spinal cord causing pain and abnormal sensations in affected dogs). She was obviously no longer a candidate for the training programme..... Now, Abby is on anti- seizure medication and so far is doing well. And this finally brings me to why I am pleading for your help. As my lovely Abby no longer has the possibility to become my assistance dog, I am hoping to get another precious doggie, a puppy who's parents have both been HEALTH TESTED and may hopefully be able to become my assistance dog. Although the charities offer this amazing training at no cost, health tested doggies do come at a cost. Unfortunately,  with my now limited funds I am not able to afford this and the waiting list with other charities for a fully trained assistance dog is years and that's when their application portals open up for new applications... Asking you wonderful people to help me raise the money to get a healthy, reliable dog which can hopefully be trained as my assistance dog  does not come easily,  however, it seems to be the only option. This dog would open up a whole new world for me. It would mean a little less pain I would have to inflict on myself to carry out what used to be a simple daily task. It would mean, a little more confidence and hope that it may mean a few more 'good days'. It would mean the world. Thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart for reading this and if you want to and are able to help out, you will have helped get me that bit closer to achieving a little more independence and little less pain. THANK YOU