Katey is 17. She was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at 10. It's been a long, hard road. She checks her sugar up to 8 times a day, sometimes more. That's close to 20,000 times since she was diagnosed. And yet its still not quite enough. She goes high. She goes low. The scary part is when she goes low. She has hypoglycemic unawareness. This means she does not feel her blood sugar dropping or when it is too low. While she has a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that helps, it is not always accurate and not always fast enough.

When she is asleep, she does not wake up to the lows and she does not hear the CGM alarm. 

We almost lost her in May of 2017. Her sugar was great when she went to bed. She should have been fine until the morning. Should have. Type 1 has no rules. It does what it wants when it wants. We awoke around 3am to a loud crash. We rushed out of bed to find her unconscious and seizing on the floor. Luckily she had hit her side table when she fell out of the bed. Otherwise be wouldn't have heard anything. Dad was holding her head away from the bed any the wall, as the seizures we're so violent she was repeatedly hitting her head and face. Her sister was calling 911 and I was grabbing her supplies. It took 2 glucagon shots to stop the seizing. She was not waking up and her breathing had become very shallow. The third glucagon shots allowed her eyes to open, but she was not 'awake."  When the paramedics arrived she could only tell them her first name. She knew nothing else. We didn't know if it had caused any permanent damage, but after several hours in the hospital she was functional again. We cannot go through that again. Her body cannot handle it again. Each low has the potential to cause severe damage within a short time period.  

We need to catch it sooner. This is where a Diabetic Alert Dog (D.A.D.) comes in. They are specially trained service dogs. They are trained to alert to high and low blood sugars. The dog will try and wake her in the night if she starts getting low. If it can't wake her, it will alert someone else. These dogs noses are very accurate and they smell in real time. The CGM is about 10-15 minutes delayed. That 10 minutes can be everything.

Unfortunately, D.A.D.s are very expensive. The average cost is $20,000. This does not include food, vet, and other normal day to day costs. We have raised enough to purchase Murphy, get him through obefiobed training, and get him to Texas for his specialized scent training.

He will be there until May or June, when Katey will spend a week learning how to utilize him and his new skills. We are still about $10,000 away from making this happen.

Katey is a beautiful, talented girl. She is a swim coach, a lifeguard and cosplayer. She makes the most beautiful costumes. She was accepted to CBU and needs Murphy to help her be away from home as a college student. I want her to be able to do all the things she lives without having to be her constant shadow.

Her D.A.D. will allow her the freedom to do the things she loves with a little less of the constant nagging of diabetes. Please help her get Murphy home!

We are also open to any other fundraising ideas you have!

Thank you,

Katrina,

Katey's mom