Seizure alert dog needed to help protect Peyton

I don't know where to start.....How do you use words to describe the strongest and most amazing person you've ever met? How do you describe the daily, no, hourly challenges that your beloved niece has faced for over 20 of the 24 years she has lived? How do you explain the constant battle of type 1 diabetes - tracking every bite of food you eat, checking your blood sugar throughout the day, and administering insulin based upon the calculations of what you have allowed yourself to eat to avoid life threatening high or low blood sugar? How do you describe, on top of that, attempting to manage epilepsy - ensuring you took over a dozen medications each day and still not knowing when your next seizure will come, or what it will do to you this time? Where will you be? Will someone see you so that you can get help? Will anyone know what to do....how to protect you from great harm? How long will the seizure last? Will this seizure be too much for your body to handle? Will you get permanently hurt? Will someone get to you in time?

My beautiful 24-year-old niece, Peyton, and her family have lived this every single day since Peyton was 4 years old. First diagnosed with epilepsy at age 4, she began having petit mal seizures for about 7 years until things worsened and the first grand mal seizure occurred at age 11. In the middle of this, Peyton was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 9. These two horrendous diagnoses will be with Peyton for life. She is in the 30% of epileptics whose seizures are considered “drug-resistant”. Neither condition has a cure, and unfortunately, the treatment of each disorder greatly complicates the treatment and management of the other. This makes Peyton’s situation all the more severe and burdensome.

Peyton spent her childhood unable to do all the things that the other kids were doing. From sleepovers to playing sports to going on field trips, Peyton has had to live by extremely strict rules and orders from her doctors to simply remain alive. There were countless times when she could not attend school, go to friends' houses or birthday parties, or even vacations due to her diabetes or epilepsy. Many, many times, Peyton has had to leave places/events, sometimes by ambulance, because she was experiencing a life-threatening emergency from one of these awful diseases. Peyton has never been able to get a driver's license due to her seizures, and yet at the age of 24 she manages to hold a full-time job with Virginia Beach City Public Schools with the help of her amazing mom, Alisha, and incredible older sister, Karlee. It is daunting for everyone to help her have as normal a life as possible. These three women are astounding!

About 8 years ago, our family was blessed by our community coming together to help raise money for Peyton to purchase a diabetic alert dog. This dog, Mya, has been a literal life-saver -- notifying Peyton when her blood sugar is too high or too low, alerting her to check and remedy it, and in many events, alerting her family members when Peyton was unresponsive due to a high or low blood sugar. Mya has saved Peyton's life many times and we are forever grateful to her and our community for making this happen. It was our goal to have Mya dually trained to also alert for seizures and protect Peyton from the fall and thrashing that accompany a seizure, but Mya is now 11 years old, and her health is diminishing. Mya is now retired due to being unable to work anymore. This has left us wondering: where do we go from here?

About a month ago, we received our answer in a way that no one wanted to. While working at a local elementary school, Peyton had the most concerning seizure yet. She was at work and was walking in the tiled hallway, she fell to the tiled floor hitting her head repeatedly on the floor while seizing. She also damaged her ankle while falling. No one knew this was happening and she was found lying on the floor in the postictal state. The postictal state is a period that begins when a seizure subsides and ends when the patient returns to baseline. It typically lasts between 5 and 30 minutes and is characterized by disorienting symptoms such as confusion, drowsiness, hypertension, headache, nausea, etc. The damage she sustained from this seizure was beyond all others thus far. Peyton is maxed out on anti-seizure medications, and we have realized the only thing we can control is to provide Peyton with a seizure-alert dog to accompany her everywhere she goes each day. These highly specialized dogs are vigorously trained to sense an upcoming seizure, alert the patient so they can lay down in a safe padded area, alert an adult who is close by (think Lassie!), physically sound an alarm, and then stay with the patient during the seizure. Just as importantly, a seizure dog would be trained to break Peyton’s fall if she is unable to lay down quickly enough herself. These specially trained dogs alert 80% of seizures before they occur.

How do you tell a young woman of this caliber that there is nothing else we can do for her? Someone who has been through hell carrying these two awful diagnoses with her every day of her life. How do you tell her that the 7 short years she has had with Mya by her side is over? How do you give her just an ounce of peace-of-mind and comfort as she tries to be as normal and productive as she can possibly be?

We are asking for your help. We know the power of friends and this community. You have done it before to help this amazing young woman! We have an upcoming appointment with a fantastic, extremely reputable seizure alert dog company about 4 hours away. A fully trained seizure alert dog costs approximately $30,000. We know this is an astronomical amount, but we are going to do everything we can to reach this goal for Peyton. We are asking you to do whatever you can do – no amount is too little. All funds will go directly to the purchase of the dog. If you have any other ideas, questions, or suggestions, please let us know! We are open to other routes of fund raising as well.

Thank you for your consideration, your donation, your prayers, your warm thoughts, and your support of our family. We love and appreciate y'all deeply!

Wholeheartedly,

The Lindsey/Spruill family

Type 1 Diabetes (clevelandclinic.org)

Epilepsy (clevelandclinic.org)

Seizure-Alert Dog Company