Judy Vorfeld’s Office Support Services

Kheira McClanahan needs your help! Kheira is 8 yrs. old. She has multiple disabilities. Spina Bifida (which means her spinal cord didn’t develop normally and when she was born she had a hole in her back exposing her spinal cord), Hydrocephalus (there is too much fluid on her brain and it doesn’t drain correctly), and Epilepsy (a seizure disorder).

As you can imagine Kheira has dealt with SO many problems in her life already, and has many more to come. Her first 2 surgeries happened when she was only 19 hours old! They were to close the hole in her spine and to place a “vp shunt” into her skull to drain the water from her brain and keep it at a certain level. She has had 8 other surgeries, mostly on her hips, because they keep popping out of place. When she has hip surgeries she has to be in a cast that goes from her toes all the way up to her chest.

Kheira is small for her age and very delayed. She has NO problem making friends though, but the kids her age tend to run off to play leaving Kheira sitting in her wheelchair watching. The biggest challenge with Kheira’s disability is the seizures. Although they are getting less severe to where she doesn’t need to go to the hospital each time, they are becoming more frequent. The longest one she has ever had lasted an hour and 45 minutes. She has been life flighted to Akron Children’s hospital 4 times for seizures. Now her seizures only last up to 3 minutes at the most but she has them EVERY day, as many as 9 in one single day.

With her having these seizures every day it makes it impossible for us to leave her unattended for even a few minutes. We never know when she’s going to have one, so that means she is NEVER out of our sight. All these things together make her a very frustrated little girl. The simplest things like brushing her hair, giving medications, and changing her diaper turn into battles. She gets upset so quickly when she can’t do something on her own. She hates being dependant on us for everything!

Here’s where you come in! WE NEED HELP! We found this AMAZING organization called 4 Paws for Ability; they provide service dogs for any child with a disability. Many service dog organizations do not place dogs with children, so you can imagine our excitement to finally find one who did! We have committed to 4Paws to fundraise the amount of money it takes to train this special dog for Kheira. Some of the things the dog will do for her are:

• Retrieve items she can’t reach.
• Open doors, turn on/off lights.
• Go with her to doctor visits.
• Go with her to hospital stays.
• Go with her to therapy sessions with her to help with anxiety.
• Calm her down when she’s upset.
• Help with socialization.
• Alert us to her seizures, so she will finally be able to sleep and play in her own room. This is the most important aspect of all.

Any donation is helpful. It doesn’t matter if it’s $1 or the entire $14,000. Every penny counts. Please make checks payable to 4 Paws for Ability and note that the donation is “in honor of Kheira McClanahan” on the memo line of your check. Mail it to 253 Dayton Ave. Xenia, Ohio 45385. Or go to www.4pawsforability.org to make an online donation in Kheira’s honor. All donations are tax deductible.

Thank you so much for your help! The McClanahan Family

Note: I highly endorse 4 Paws for Ability as a source for extremely well-trained service dogs. The organization is sound and its goals exceptional. Judy Vorfeld.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Animals, Disabilities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.