Grace is 4 years old and was diagnosed September 2019 with Type 1 Diabetes at age 3. New obstacles like being declined admission to local daycares and pre-schools because they are “not equipped” for her care and adapting to a new low carb diet, saying no to birthday cake, cupcakes and cookies often makes her feel left out and alone. Injecting 4 insulin shots a day and multiple blood glucose "pricks" throughout the day has been tough but necessary but she is so strong. Her tears and frustrations always result in heartache and consistent worry from my wife and I. We pray for Grace to be cured of her diabetes and hope one day a cure will be found, until then we will continue to give her the best care available.

 I have been researching better ways to monitor her blood glucose levels and we are very intrigued by diabetic alert service dogs. A trained service dog can alert my wife and I when high and low ketones are detected as a result of elevated or low blood glucose levels and often alert sooner than a continuous glucose monitor. Our greatest fear is that our daughter will become unresponsive due to a drop in blood sugar during the night. I have an alarm set on my phone to check her blood glucose levels at 3am every night. Although we would still do this, a dog would help detect a low sooner (waking us during the night if needed) increasing her level of care while giving us all a little more peace of mind. ...not to mention the benefit of a special bond between them throughout her childhood.

The cost is now $7,000! Originally we were anticipating having to pay $15,000 but the service dog professional we are working with **Lily Grace** (who is nationally renowned for her training expertise) has agreed to the new price! With this new price point a new set of challenges does present themselves, including traveling to her home in Sandpoint Idaho and learning how to effectively train our new service dog/pup. THANK YOU SO MUCH to all who have donated and shared our daughter's story, we appreciate and are very thankful to all who have felt generous enough to help us. We look forward to this new journey and will be posting all about her new adventure on an instagram page built specifically for Grace and her diabetic alert dog.

A video from her website is posted below. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out anytime.