JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Catherine Osias, a local mother working to get some potentially life-saving help for her daughter, needs your help this holiday season.
She and her family are raising money to train a seizure alert dog to help 8-year-old Kailey.
“She had well over 2,000 seizures in her lifetime. Some were bigger than the others, some were small. And that’s just me guessing,” Osias said.
Kailey has been battling seizures for much of her life. After several misdiagnoses, Kailey was properly diagnosed in February with a form of epilepsy causing seizures in the brain’s frontal lobe affecting her behavior.
“‘No something is wrong, something is wrong with my baby. I don’t think it’s what you guys are saying.’ Then they finally granted me the ability to have her have an MRI and when they look, they were like there was a lot more damage done that we probably could have saved if we knew earlier on,” said Osias. “We had to resuscitate her twice this year already because we just never know when her seizures are happening. Because right now, she can look like a normal child.”
Now her mother is raising the necessary funds to train their purebred golden retriever, Kyro, as a seizure alert dog.
“She broke out into a seizure at the playground, hit some other child, the child hit her right back. She hit her teacher, they put her in timeout. She used the bathroom, they kind of always toss her to the side because they don’t know. They’re thinking it’s just her behavior. So, I’m just getting tired of her not being noticed that she has a disability, they just cannot see it,” said Osias.
Kyro has been training since August through an expedited process with K9 for Hope to know and identify when Kailey is having a seizure.
He will be trained to know the signs, alert others around her, calm her during the seizure, and ultimately operate as her mother’s eyes and ears when she can’t be around.
The training alone for these specific tasks costs $12,000 without any help from insurance. The family also travels nearly four hours a week to train in Palm City with Kyro.
“With that service dog, it’s going to let people know, ‘Listen, no this is not just her behavior. She’s experiencing something that she needs medical attention too,’” said Osias.
Osias said the picture without the service dog is bleak.
“We’re trapped in our house, because of these seizures. Because we don’t know and it’s not safe for her to be around others for too long or just be in extracurricular activities,” said Osias. “Without a service dog, her childhood is pretty much robbed. She’s pretty much going to be a bubble child.”
Here is the link to donate to Kailey’s campaign: https://helphopelive.org/campaign/19247/. You can also donate to the family’s GoFundMe.
You can keep up with Kailey and Kyro’s journey here: @kay_n_kaikai.