4 Paws For Kathryn Rosenow

Seizures are making life so hard for our Kathryn Felicity, whose name means "pure joy." She has always had a seizure disorder, but over the last few months, things have gotten much worse.

Kathryn was born in Guatemala with severe deformities to her brain. Our family adopted her in 2005 when she was just eight months old. We were told that, based on her brain imaging, we should never expect her to interact with us or ever even know who we were. We were told that she would be what is often referred to as a "vegetable." Those who told us this turned out to be wrong. 

We chose Kathryn's name very deliberately, asking God to fill her with joy and use her to bring joy to the world in spite of the bleak prognosis we had been given about her future. He answered this prayer a million times over as this little Guatemalan princess became a bright beam of joy for our family and others who have come to know her through the years. 

Kathryn surprised everyone who saw her brain images, and she continues to surprise the world every day. She was like a little empty shell when she came home, but music and snuggles and the love of a big family drew her out, where she was able to love and receive love, learn from, and even teach, others—just by being in the same room with them. 

She learned to talk, she understands simple jokes (and has even been known to tell a few jokes herself). She has strong opinions and tries to share them. She has a magical laugh. She will never walk, but she learned to crawl in spite of her cerebral palsy, and she then went on to astound a watching world by doing things like learning her colors, identifying animals and familiar objects in photos, figuring out how to play Memory and other simple games. And so many more things. 

She still struggles with almost ever aspect of life, and she lives as a child who is approximately three years old, in the body of a sixteen-year-old. But she faces all of these challenges with courage and determination, and her perseverance inspires each of us to become better versions of ourselves..

Seizures have been a part of our girl's life for many years, but we have mostly been able to control those with medications. Sadly, over the last few months Kathryn's seizures have gotten much worse. She is on four different medications at the moment and is still having multiple seizures a day. We are in the process of trying to arrange a fairly minor surgery to have a Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) implanted, with the hope that this will help control her seizures better. 

Barring a miracle, though, Kathryn will never be seizure-free, and these last few months have made us realize how important it is that she have a dog that can alert us when she is having a seizure, and even alert us when she is about to have a seizure. Putting her to bed each night is a scary thing for us. We have a camera in her room and can see and hear her through the night. But the truth is, she could still have a serious, even life-threatening, seizure during the night that we might never know about. A dog trained to sense these seizures would be able to wake us so that we could administer emergency/rescue medications. 

The detailed breeding, raising, and training of these incredible dogs is a long and expensive process, and even after we raise the $17,000 fee, we will still have to wait about two years for Kathryn's dog to be ready for her. Because of this, we are very anxious to get the fund-raising step behind us so that we can officially begin the wait for Kathryn's own special four-pawed friend and partner. 

Thank you so much for any help you are able to offer. We are so very grateful. 

*If you would like to know more about our story, you can check out our book that was published in 2015, "Swaying in the Treetops: A True Story of Faith and the Fatherless."  

Kathryn with her mom and dad and all 22 of her siblings.