A dog’s journey to give a teenager back her life
ABBYGAIL Crosby can collapse without warning. In 12 months, 66 transports to the emergency department. Her journey back to a have a normal teenage life is finding an “assistance dog”.
Four years ago, at Pimpama State Secondary College, the popular student appeared to doze off next to friends at lunch.
Her parents, Des and Cassie, were called by the school’s reception.
Two days later, another episode, and their “Abby” this time was unresponsive for nine hours.
By 2018, the family had 36 ambulance call-outs as their daughter was taken to the Gold Coast University Hospital ED. Two years later the emergency calls had doubled.
Des is a project officer. Cassie has had to cut back work as a swim instructor. Long ago it seems now when she recalls Abby swam “just a like a little fish in water”.
On July 22 this year, Abby’s seizure lasted more than 23 hours.
She was unresponsive for 30 minutes, and then 12 hours with temporary paralysis from the neck down.
These “drop attacks” can occur at the supermarket. The wait for an ambulance at the height of Covid was four hours.
The stress on school and the Queensland Ambulance Service saw Abby learn from home.
Her parents have always been helpers.
Cassie was 15 and with the volunteer rural fire brigade in Wellington when she met Des.
They moved to Australia in 2015, Des joined the SES.
Abby before her illness worked to help charities like Rosies looking after the homeless.
This is a family entrenched in community, known in the heart of the north of the city where their friends reached out to tell their story. Friends say they “give and never ask”.
A GoFundMe page was created to help them get an “assistance dog” and transport vehicle — the link is here.
After numerous tests and visits to hospitals, medical specialists diagnosed Abby with functional neurological disorder (FND).
Cassie told your columnist: “It’s all about therapy. There is no treatment.”
The family found Tracey Murray, co-founder of the charity Empower Assistance Dogs. During that first meeting Abby had a seizure and was paralysed from the neck down.
Tracey placed a Cavalier Spaniel on the teenager’s lap, and she was more relaxed.
At the charity’s Loganlea base on Tuesday morning this week, Abby arrived with her parents to work for the first time with an assistance trainer dog, a black Labrador called Greg.
This initial session for both was about learning “different commands”.
“I’m sure a dog will help Abby firstly by making her feel better. The dog (will be trained) to get help for her and wake Cassie and Des during the night, if needed. It will help her with a bit of balance,” Tracey said.
Empower Assistance Dogs gets multiple calls each day from families. Tracey knew from the moment she met Abby’s family that she would help, setting up a video for their funding page.
“I felt like this family, they’ve long being doing so much for the community. It’s time the community gave them a dog,” Tracey said.
At the end of that first session Abby and Greg just rested together on the grass, as Tracey took a photograph. While there were concerns the session could trigger an episode, Abby was just smiling. ”It was such a lovely moment,” Tracey said.
Abby, 16, on their first meeting had told her: “I just want to be a normal typical teenager who does things on my own.” Here now is a remarkable moment for their community to give assistance.