As a Texas police chief's daughter struggles with serious health issues, residents of the community he serves have stepped up to raise money to help the family pay for a seizure response dog for the young girl.
Decatur Police Chief Delvon Campbell's 9-year-old daughter, Kynadee, has suffered from seizures for the past couple years, and they have been controlled with medicine, The Wise County Messenger reports. But over Labor Day, Kynadee's condition worsened, and she was hospitalized.
“For whatever reason, over the holiday weekend, we noticed something wasn’t right with her, and the seizures started happening more frequently and they changed from the normal seizures she’d been having previously,” said Campbell. “She’d been having multiple seizures pretty much back to back, and none of the medicines were working.”
While in the hospital, Kynadee was placed on a ventilator. She also was diagnosed with a rhinovirus, a urinary tract infection and a possible lung infection.
As doctors work to get her current health issues under control, the family has been figuring out how to handle her long-term treatment. A seizure response dog was suggested by one of Kyndaee's doctor.
"Those dogs are trained to recognize the seizures and things coming on early, so they basically would bark and alert us that she’s having one,” said Campbell. "The issue we are having now is my wife or somebody has to sleep close to her or by her, especially this past month, constantly keeping an eye on her. Monitors and other things don’t really alert you to that, so that’s where the dog comes into play. Through their training, they can alert us that she’s actually having a seizure."
But these specially trained canines are incredibly expensive. That's why a resident started a GoFundMe campaign—after contacting the Campbell—to help raise money for the dog. As of Oct. 19, the campaign has raised over $43,000 of its $50,000 goal.
“This is what makes Decatur, Decatur in my opinion, the way people go out of their way to help one another,” said Campbell about the support from residents. “It’s not the first time the community has stepped up and helped us with Kynadee and all her disabilities that she has. It’s really, really, really awesome to know you live and work in a community that will go out of its way to help one another. You hear other people talk about their communities that do these things, but Decatur is just different. It’s wonderful you have people who go out of their way to help people, and they don’t ask for anything in return.”
Go to the GoFundMe page to donate to Kynadee's seizure response dog fund.
