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Oct 29, 2009 5:51 pm US/Central
Spooky Event To Raise Funds For Girl's Service Dog
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Five-year-old Kylie Gibbons has tuberous sclerosis complex, or TSC for short. It's a genetic disease that causes tumors to grow in different vital organs.
CBS
For some, Halloween is the time for tricks, but a Minnesota grandmother is attempting to use the holiday to give a lot of people a special treat.
Karen Ueland has held her "Spooktacular" for the last couple years. Once again this year her yard is filled with dozens of pumpkins, ghosts and goblins. She has spend a few thousand dollars on the decorations, hoping to help children enjoy the holidays.
"Halloween's probably my favorite, obviously. I like Halloween," Karen Ueland said.
This year, making sure hundreds come to it is really important for her and her family, because she's hoping the Spooktacular can help buy her granddaughter a dog. But the dog wouldn't simply be a companion, but rather a potential lifesaver.
Five-year-old Kylie Gibbons has tuberous sclerosis complex, or TSC for short. It's a genetic disease that causes tumors to grow in different vital organs.
Her mother, Maria Gibbons, remembers doctors diagnosing her daughter.
"I was devastated," Gibbons said. "It was our first child."
Maria has watched her daughter progress more slowly than other children. She works with therapists for speech and writing, and she suffers serious seizures. She endured a hundred seizures as she was being diagnosed, and sometimes experiences up to five per day.
"You think your child has seizures, and you're going to go to the doctor, and it's going to get better," said Gibbons. "We just have to keep an eye on her all the time."
Her parents, worried seizures could harm or even kill their daughter, have made special sleeping arrangements in their room. It's been this way all Kylie's life.
"We got a little futon, and she sleeps on here," Maria said, pointing to the futon.
She explained how she and her husband want to hear Kylie if she has a seizure in the middle of the night, adding, "If her seizure is long enough, she has to have emergency medication."
Her parents think an assistance dog would focus on Kylie and signal them should she have a seizure. The non-profit organization Midwest Assistance Dogs, based in South Bend, Ind., trains dogs for that purpose.
"Our hope is that it could detect a seizure and let us know if we're not always around," she commented.
The non-profit is going to look for a dog for Kylie in the northern Indiana area and possibly train one that a rescue group takes in. But the service dog could cost the Gibbons family $6,000, which is why Karen Ueland's "Spooktacular" is being held with the hopes of raising a supernatural tally of funds.
"I think it would make their life a little easier," commented Ueland.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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