Her Son Is Struggling With Bad Falls And This Mom Is Hoping To Get The $19,000 Needed For A Service Dog
Cincinnati, Ohio. Kim Winnicki lives in Cincinnati along with her husband and their three sons. One of their sons, Liam, was born 13 weeks prematurely, and since that day, he has encountered many challenges in life.
“He has been a fighter since the beginning,” Kim wrote on a GoFundMe page for Liam. Liam is currently in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, and yet, he still faces obstacles on a daily basis.
“Liam is on the Autism Spectrum,” Kim explained. “Some of his struggles are physical, some are social, and some are sensory.”
Liam has a hard time in school and at home, and it’s difficult for him to focus. That trouble with focus, coupled with the fact that he experiences instability physically means that he sadly has had a few bad falls over the last couple of months.
This summer, Liam and his family were at Kinds Island, and he fell so badly that paramedics were called out to help him.
One week during school recently, he fell two times in just one week. Liam is becoming more anxious and concerned about having more falls, and it’s impacting his upbeat personality.
Kim also had a horrifying thing happen recently when she was holding Liam’s hand and walking through a parking lot.
Somehow, Liam was able to break free from Kim and began running. A car very nearly hit Liam that day, and Kim described that moment as “one of worst moments” she ever went through as a mom.
Through doing a lot of research and speaking to many people, Kim realized a service dog could greatly help Liam in his day-to-day life.
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“It will provide physical stability and safety through tethering and a harness,” Kim mentioned.
“Hopefully this will prevent any further incidents in parking lots or on streets and also help him with stability at school and prevent falls.”
“It will fill a huge sensory need for Liam. It will help to alert anxiety. Liam does not advocate for himself and often cannot express when he feels anxious.”
Kim went on to point out that a service dog will help Liam remain calm and focused. A service dog additionally will help Liam socially, as he is beginning to get bullied by children at school and he has a tough time.
“We are hoping a dog can help bridge a social and communication gap and allow Liam to make more friends,” Kim continued.
“It can help provide better sleep. We also have great hope that it will increase his independence and confidence.”
I’m sure you can imagine that a service dog has to go through extensive and rigorous training to be able to perform all the jobs that they do for their human, and because of that, service dogs are quite costly.
Kim shared that it will cost her and her family $19,000 to get Liam a service dog, and it will take around 10-12 months after they make a deposit for a dog to be ready for Liam.
Given the large sum of money, Kim is hoping to raise the funds throughout the community to be able to help provide Liam with a service dog to change his life.
If you would like to donate to the fund for Liam’s service dog, you can do that here.
More About:Human Interest
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