As she sat with her mom and the breeder, now freshman Eliza Youmans watched the two puppies held on the other side of the room. The first thing she noticed was that one of the puppies couldn’t take its eyes off of her.
After holding both puppies, Youmans knew that it felt exponentially different when she held her now service dog, Leo.
That day, Youmans took Leo home to begin his training which ultimately built a lifelong bond between them.
“It kind of hit me that this dog was going to be my best friend, so I really took time and thought about it,” Youmans said. “When I held him, he just stuck to me so I definitely was happy and he was definitely the one.”
Youmans navigates the emotions and hardships of neurocardiogenic syncope everyday but with the help of her service animal, Leo, she can focus more on other things rather than looking out for symptoms and preparing for the worst.
When Youmans started to faint as a child, her mother instantly began to worry. She knew that something was wrong and she didn’t stop worrying until Youmans was diagnosed.
After her diagnosis of neurocardiogenic syncope, Youmans started looking out for signs, but these symptoms could last hours, and there was still no indicator of exactly when she was going to faint.
Neurocardiogenic syncope is a disorder that causes a person’s heart rate to quickly rise and their blood pressure to rapidly plummet.
“Basically all my blood gets stuck in my legs and it won’t go up to my brain or heart,” Youmans said. “He can smell my heart rate if it goes up, and he can tell me if I’m about to pass out.”
Jessica Youmans, Youmans’ mother, noticed how scared Youmans was when she fainted.
Her heart was constantly racing and her family didn’t know what to do. She was constantly in fear of passing out.
“She wouldn’t know that she was going to pass out until it was almost too late,” Jessica said. “Once your heart rate is getting up so high, it stays that high. There were times where her heart rate would be in the 200s while she was just sitting on the couch, and I think that scared her.”
When the doctor told Jessica that Youmans would need a service dog, she instantly started to look into a suggested training facility. Her daughter’s disorder worried her, she feared for Eliza if she didn’t have a service dog.
After the diagnosis, she found a breeder whose puppies had gone on to become service animals.
She had been in contact with the training school and the breeder at the same time, relaying information between the two. She also started thinking about requirements she wanted for the dog.
The dog needed to be male, calm and nonreactive for Youmans’ physical needs. The breeder had two puppies in mind, and Jessica immediately wanted the bigger one.
A male dog would’ve been bigger than a female and would benefit Youmans’ immensely.
One of Leo’s tasks is to lay on Youmans’ legs to increase the rate of the blood flow going back to her heart.
“I liked the other one because it was bigger, but I knew how important it was for a service animal to be in tune with their owner and that was Leo,” Jessica said.
After Youmans took Leo home, it was a struggle for her and her family to remember that even though he is their pet, outside of the house, he’s working.
Her family would accidentally talk to or pet Leo. They had to work to stop interfering with his work while in public.
“That was probably the trickier thing, because out of habit you talk to him, he’s your dog, but you can’t whenever you’re in public and he’s working,” Jessica Youmans said.
After Leo had finished his training, Youmans started bringing him to school halfway through sixth grade, and she immediately went from being like everyone else to being “the kid with the dog.”
But, Youmans doesn’t always bring Leo with her because it’s tiring to take him to school everyday and deal with people who don’t respect her boundaries.
“Sometimes I don’t feel like bringing him,” Youmans said. “So many kids are annoying with him and it’s a lot. I used to be a normal kid when I didn’t have him, and now I have him so it’s a lot.”
During the school day, several people would ask for his name or ask if they could pet him. Since service animals are trained to respond after their name is said, it’s hard for Leo to work when these things happen.
This can affect his ability to catch Youmans’ heart rate because he’s paying attention to something else, which can put Youmans in serious danger.
“It would really affect him and then he wouldn’t be able to catch my heart rate,” Youmans said. “So I give people fake names because he won’t respond to them and he can stay focused.”
As Youmans navigates through her daily life with the help of Leo, it makes it easier when people don’t interfere with Leo’s job.
Because of her disorder, she knows that fear is a very common emotion for her. It scares her anytime she gets too stressed or stands too fast that she may faint.
Even though these feelings affect her mentally, she feels better knowing that she picked the right dog. Leo is her best friend and her disorder could never take away from that.
“Eliza sat down and the dogs were on the other side of the room,” Youmans’ mom, Jessica Youmans said. “Leo got up, walked in a straight line to her, curled up in her lap and just looked at her.”
