A Heartbeat Away: TW’s Journey with Sampson and the Hope for What Comes Next

The first time Sampson saved TW’s life, he was barely four months old.

It was a warm July evening in 2018, just a few weeks after TW had picked him up at eight weeks old—a fluffy black poodle puppy with ears too big for his head and a heart already tuned to something bigger than playtime. TW had only recently been diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, the kind of connective tissue disorder that turns joints into loose hinges and everyday movement into a gamble. Add in POTS (the autonomic glitch that sends heart rate soaring and blood pressure crashing the moment TW stood up) and MCAS (random, violent allergic reactions that could strike without warning), and life had become a daily negotiation with a body that felt like it was betraying her at every turn.

That night, TW stood up from the couch to grab water. The room tilted. Black spots bloomed across her vision. Before her knees could buckle, a tiny puppy launched himself at her legs, pawing frantically, whining in a pitch she’d never heard from him before. Sampson planted his little body against her shins and refused to budge—an eight-pound anchor keeping her upright until the dizziness passed. That was the first official cardiac alert. There would be hundreds more.

Over the next seven years, Sampson grew into the job like he was born for it—which, in every way that mattered, he was.

He learned to brace against TW’s hip when her joints threatened to sublux or dislocate on a walk to class. He alerted to heart-rate spikes before TW even felt the familiar flutter in her chest. He attended every single doctor’s appointment, every hospitalization (even when TW was admitted for severe gastroparesis in 2021 and became completely dependent on a feeding tube for nutrition). Sampson would curl up on the hospital bed, head on TW’s knee, as if saying, “I’m still on duty.”

For three solid years he went to work with her every day—until the illnesses progressed to the point that “going to work” was no longer possible. Even then, Sampson never clocked out.

Then came August 2025.

A simple grooming appointment left Sampson with a rash on his belly. The rash became an infection. The infection spiraled into sepsis with terrifying speed. Daily vet visits, rounds of antibiotics, pain meds that tore up his stomach—for a month TW fought alongside him the way he had always fought for her. But on September 5, 2025, the emergency vet delivered the kind of news that steals the air from a room: sepsis had won. The only humane choice left was to let him go.

TW held him as he crossed the Rainbow Bridge, whispering thank you in the same voice he had heard every time he’d pressed his alert paw to her leg and kept her world from tilting.

Now the house is quiet in a way it has never been. No click of nails on hardwood. No soft “boof” when TW’s heart rate climbs too high. No steady presence leaning against an unsteady body.

But TW is still here—still pushing forward, still enrolled in school to become a Child Life Specialist so she can one day help scared kids in hospital beds the way Sampson once helped her. She paints when her hands cooperate. She reads voraciously. She spends every possible moment with her family. And she misses the weight of a dog at her side more than words can hold.

That’s why she has applied to Mission: Service Dog.

The puppy who will come next won’t replace Sampson—nothing ever could—but a new service dog will once again make it possible for TW to walk longer distances without fear of falling, to catch dangerous heart-rate spikes before they become emergencies, and to move through the world with the quiet confidence that only a four-legged partner can give.

TW lights up when she talks about raising another puppy from eight weeks old—watching those oversized ears grow into the job, teaching alerts, celebrating every milestone. She wants to feel useful again. She wants to give another dog the same extraordinary purpose Sampson had.

And she needs our help to make it happen.

Every dollar donated to Mission: Service Dog in TW’s name brings her one step closer to that next chapter—one where she’s not just surviving, but thriving alongside a new best friend who already, somehow, knows her heartbeat by heart.

Will you help write the next page of TW’s story?

Donate today to Mission: Service Dog and let’s make sure TW never has to walk this journey alone again.

In memory of Sampson, and in hope for the puppy yet to be named. 🐾❤️

Donate for TW here: https://square.link/u/oLDykm4b