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Hi, my name is Em. I wear many different hats in my life - including working at a youth centre, volunteering as the past president of my local community association, teaching workshops about mental health and neurodiversity, helping to facilitate a chronic pain support group for youth, volunteering with rescues for orphaned and injured wildlife, and working as a child and family photographer. I am passionate about helping people (and animals) as much as possible.

I also live with several long term physical and mental health conditions that impact my life every day.

Physically, I have been living with Atypical Cystic Fibrosis since birth, a disease that primarily affects my lungs. This was unfortunately undiagnosed until adulthood, and as a child, I was heavily reliant on long-term steroid treatments to breathe. While these treatments offered temporary relief, they caused long-term harm, leaving me with chronic immune deficiency, adrenal suppression, and osteoporosis. Moreover, an accident in 2019 resulted in a broken L1 vertebrae and compounded my struggle with chronic pain.

Outside of my physical disabilities, I also live with ADHD, depression, and Complex-PTSD. C-PTSD is a condition resulting from repeated or prolonged trauma, and it impacts me every single day. Despite years of therapy, I still deal with symptoms like intrusive memories, extreme anxiety, difficulty being alone (resulting in over scheduling myself), hypervigilance, difficulty trusting others, poor concentration and memory, dissociation, and panic attacks - to name a few.

While my service dog will be trained to help me with some physical tasks, (like picking up dropped items or opening doors), it will mainly help me deal with symptoms of C-PTSD by helping me build a sense of safety and independence, comforting me during panic attacks or intrusive memories, and helping to ground me when I am dealing with dissociation.

A service dog will offer me the reassurance and companionship I need to move through each day confidently and I will be able to do things on my own that I would normally need to rely on my support network for; and because of my work with youth - I will be able to spread awareness about complex trauma and the benefits of service dogs for physical and mental health.

I truly believe that this will significantly enhance my life quality and allow me to continue my service to the community. My goal is to fund a service dog's complete training through Kingston 4 Paws. Any help in raising awareness or funds for this purpose would be greatly appreciated!