Halloween Spooktacular for Kylie: Spooky Family Fun To Raise Money For Local Girl With TSC

Kylie Gibbons is a five-year-old from Falcon Heights who suffers from the rare and debilitating disease tuberous sclerosis complex, TSC, which causes benign tumors to grow in the body. In Kylie's case, she has almost 30 tumors in her brain causing developmental delays and potentially life-threatening seizures. There is no cure for TSC.

Kylie has between one and five seizures every day, and since she was born has slept in her parents bedroom. Her mom and dad are afraid that she may have a seizure in the middle of the night that they won't hear until it's too late.

While researching ways to share some of the responsibility of looking after Kylie 24 hours a day, the Gibbons, who also have two younger children, Ava and Sheamus, discovered that specially trained dogs can help seizure patients. The dogs are trained to recognize the signs of a seizure and alert others to get help. Some seizure dogs have even bonded with their owners so much that they seem to be able to recognize that a seizure is coming before their owner does, and can warn them to sit or lie down to avoid injuries from falls, then get help.

Midwest Assistance Dogs of Indiana will be providing Kylie's dog. But training a seizure dog is expensive - around $6000 for the initial training, then more for transportation to Minnesota and more training to enable the dog to work with Kylie's specific needs.

So this year, Kylie's family has organized a Halloween fundraising event to raise money towards Kylie's seizure dog. Kylie's grandmother, Karen, is holding the event at her home in St. Paul. But this isn't your normal house.  Grandma Karen loves Halloween so much that she has her very own haunted house in the back yard, and neighborhood kids come trick-or-treating by the hundreds every year.

As well as the haunted house, there will also be pirates, witches, ghosts, graves, games, treats and prizes. It's a family friendly event, designed to be fun rather than frightening even for young children. There will be indoor and outdoor activities so the event will go on, rain, shine or snow.

The Halloween Spooktacular for Kylie is at 801 Lakeview Avenue in the Como Park neighborhood of St. Paul. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m on October 31.

The event costs $5 per person, up to $20 maximum per family.

More information at http://www.halloweenspooktacular.myevent.com

_{Beautiful five-year-old Kylie Gibbons. Photo courtesy Gibbons Family}