Faith, Family, Friends, and Furbaby
Young Wyoming Woman Combats Health Issues
Casper, WY
Written by Gayle M Irwin
Photography by Gayle M Irwin
When Lynn Heyer finally received a diagnosis for her six-year-long health battle, she already knew how she would attack this life-altering challenge: with the help of her faith, family, and friends. Plus, the newest weapon in her arsenal, a service dog named Yankee.
Born and raised in Casper, Wyoming, Lynn began experiencing uncontrolled, seizure-like body movements when she was twelve. Her mother took her to the emergency room several times and the diagnosis was the same at each visit.
I’ve gotten to watch him grow and see him change. Watching him grow from a puppy to an adult dog who can alert me when I’m going to have an episode is very rewarding for me to see.
- Lynn Heyer
“I was told it was anxiety and with medication, to go home and I’d be fine. But I wasn’t fine,” she said.
A local neurologist produced a diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome, however, the spasms she experienced were unlike tics associated with that condition.
“My muscles will feel like they need to contract, so I’ll squeeze and clench all of my muscles all over my body,” she explained. “Sometimes these attacks can last thirty minutes or five or six hours. It gets pretty difficult – sometimes I become immobilized.”
Lynn travelled to Denver in search of a second opinion and was diagnosed with paroxysmal nonkinesigenic dyskinesia (PNKD). Paroxysmal dyskinesias are rare disorders of the nervous system which result in abnormal, involuntary body movements. Yet again, Lynn said her experiences didn’t align with this condition.
Another Denver medical visit in 2018 finally provided a concrete diagnosis: not PNKD, but a different, more rare form of Tourette’s.
“It’s not stereotypical of what Tourette’s looks like, so it took doctors awhile to diagnose,” she said.
With confirmation, it was time to seek treatment, and Lynn believed a service dog might be of help. So the search began.
“I had thought about getting a service dog my sophomore year of high school,” she said. “I thought, ‘maybe they could work for me; they work for so many people.’”
However, finding dogs specifically trained for helping people like her proved daunting, with only two organizations in the entire nation training Tourette-specific service dogs. The closest to Wyoming was Glad Wags in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“I called them up and found out it would be cheaper to go through them and do a self-training program with their aid,” she said. “So, I trained him myself with the help of Marj, who is the Glad Wags owner and dog trainer.”
“Even though trials will continue to come, you can still be joyful, and you can still fulfill your purpose in life. I think that was a big part of me choosing to be motivated to help other people and to wake up out of my bubble of toxicity.”
Poodles are best fit for the needs of Lynn and others like her. Her dog, Yankee, is a Goldendoodle, a breed known for their sweet temperament and trainability. Lynn obtained him as a puppy, and he will be two years old in January 2022.
“Goldendoodles are easy to train,” she said. “And they’re just really sweet dogs, so it’s not hard to get them to love you and to help you. Also, with the poodle hair, he’s hypoallergenic so it makes it nicer for the community – if someone is allergic to dogs, they won’t be allergic to him.”
Yankee is trained in basic obedience and for alerting Lynn in advance of a muscle-clenching episode. They are taught to detect these episodes through scents.
“You swab your mouth with a Q-tip when you have an attack, and you put it under cups, and they find the scent,” she said. “That teaches them, when they smell that scent, to alert you. So, he’ll alert me up to twenty or thirty minutes before I have an attack.”
Yankee simply places his head on her knee to share his warning. If she doesn’t pay attention, he “slaps” her. If she still ignores him, “he barks,” Lynn explained.
Yankee is also trained to provide “deep pressure therapy,” she added. Lynn sits or lays down, he then lays his 95-pound body over her, applying pressure. The task is called ‘cover’ and it helps calm her muscles. He is also learning to carry items for her.
To Lynn, not only is Yankee a life-changing blessing, but a joy.
“I’ve gotten to watch him grow and see him change. Watching him grow from a puppy to an adult dog who can alert me when I’m going to have an episode is very rewarding for me to see,” she said.
Health has not been the only challenge Lynn has experienced. When she was three, her older brother drowned and five years later, her father committed suicide. Another brother also experienced mental health challenges. These incidents wreaked havoc upon the family, and Lynn, who was raised in a Christian home, struggled.
“I stepped away from my faith for a time – I didn’t want a relationship with God (then),” she said. “I never denied he was real, but I was [thinking], ‘I don’t think I want to be friends with someone who’s really mean.’”
With the help of her mother - who Lynn describes as “a rock” - friends, a father-figure who was her youth pastor, and reading scripture and books on apologetics, she rediscovered her relationship with God… and herself.
“I used to be quite a toxic person… and I used to be so sad,” she said. “But I’m wasting my purpose on this Earth if I just sit around being depressed all the time. I’ve grown into a more joyful person, into a more understanding kind of person… Even though trials will continue to come, you can still be joyful, and you can still fulfill your purpose in life. I think that was a big part of me choosing to be motivated to help other people and to wake up out of my bubble of toxicity.”
Pursuing what she believes is her purpose, as a first-year college student, she is studying American Sign Language.
“I’ve always had an interest in the deaf culture,” she said. “I believe I’m called to missions (and) this community is in the top three communities unreached by the Gospel. I want to get a degree and spread the Gospel in the deaf community.”
She also desires to train service dogs.
“To see how much Yankee has helped me in my life, I would like to give that to other people,” she said. “There are people around to support you, but honestly, there is nothing better than the way a dog can love you.”
