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Lampeter-Strasburg alum Karin Hostetter, with her service dog Peter, as she arrives for classes at Penn State Harrisburg in Middletown Thursday Feb. 17, 2022.
Lampeter-Strasburg alum Karin Hostetter, with her service dog Peter, as she arrives for classes at Penn State Harrisburg in Middletown Thursday Feb. 17, 2022.
Lampeter-Strasburg alum Karin Hostetter, gets ready for class as her service dog Peter lays on a blanket under her desk, at Penn State Harrisburg in Middletown Thursday Feb. 17, 2022.
Lampeter-Strasburg alum Karin Hostetter, with her service dog Peter, as she arrives for classes at Penn State Harrisburg in Middletown Thursday Feb. 17, 2022.
Jared Hostetter, 15, left, Karin Hostetter, 19, center, with her service dog two year old Labrador Peter and Kierstin Hostetter, 17, right, at Lampeter-Strasburg High School Friday Jan. 21, 2022.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter warms up while hooked up to oxygen at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter puts on her oxygen before starting her workout at Universal Athletic Club Monday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter does a TRX row while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter is spotted by Kelly Drexler, her trainer, while doing a dumbell press at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter, left, talks to Kelly Drexler, her trainer, while taking a break during her workout at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg alum Karin Hostetter, with her service dog Peter, as she arrives for classes at Penn State Harrisburg in Middletown Thursday Feb. 17, 2022.
Lampeter-Strasburg alum Karin Hostetter, gets ready for class as her service dog Peter lays on a blanket under her desk, at Penn State Harrisburg in Middletown Thursday Feb. 17, 2022.
Lampeter-Strasburg alum Karin Hostetter, with her service dog Peter, as she arrives for classes at Penn State Harrisburg in Middletown Thursday Feb. 17, 2022.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter warms up while hooked up to oxygen at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter puts on her oxygen before starting her workout at Universal Athletic Club Monday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter does a TRX row while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter is spotted by Kelly Drexler, her trainer, while doing a dumbell press at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter, left, talks to Kelly Drexler, her trainer, while taking a break during her workout at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg High School junior Karin Hostetter exercises while hooked up to oxygen, with the assistance of Kelly Drexler, her trainer, at Universal Athletic ClubMonday, April 22, 2019. Hostetter was a three-sport student-athlete until recently being diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease.
Lampeter-Strasburg graduate Karin Hostetter is nearing the five-year mark from when she was first diagnosed with child’s interstitial lung disease.
In that time, Karin, now 19, has never learned what originally caused the scarring on her lungs.
Her case of the disease is also so rare it has left her large medical team stumped.
“Even my doctor at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has said, ‘I’ve literally never seen a case like this,’ ” she said. “She has studied cases from all over the country, and she hasn’t seen anything like this.”
“They sent her case to doctors over in Europe,” said Karin’s father, Jason Hostetter. “They presented her case at conferences because it’s so rare.”
The disease has caused Karin’s lungs to slowly deteriorate, to the point where she recently began the evaluation process for a potential lung transplant.
“It’s scary,” Karin said. “One doctor says I still have time. The other doctor says, ‘No, you’re running out of time.’ ”
Karin received a saving grace of sorts just four months ago in the form of a medical alert service dog. She has named the dog Peter — short for Peter Parker, the fictional name of Karin’s favorite superhero, Spider-Man.
“I honestly couldn’t imagine living without him, and it’s only been a few months,” Karin said. “I don’t ever want to be without him.”
Lampeter-Strasburg alum Karin Hostetter, with her service dog Peter, as she arrives for classes at Penn State Harrisburg in Middletown Thursday Feb. 17, 2022.
On a Thursday afternoon in mid-February, Karin opened the driver-side door of her car in the handicap parking lot in the center of the Penn State Harrisburg campus. She retrieved Peter, a 2-year-old black Labrador, from the back seat.
Over Karin’s shoulder was a strap carrying a small machine that takes in the air around her, concentrates the oxygen from it, and feeds that oxygen back through a small tube that runs from the machine to her nostrils.
With Peter’s leash in hand, Karin walked to the building where her Thursday afternoon class is held.
As she enters the building, a female student on her way out noticed Peter, stopped, and asked to pet the dog.
“It’s happened a lot,” Karin said.
Petting a service dog on duty is frowned upon, which makes sense when you consider the circumstances.
“(Peter’s) job is to sense when my oxygen levels decrease and when my heart rate goes up,” Karin said.
To do so requires a high level of focus from Peter.
“The hardest part is teaching the dogs how to deal in a public environment,” said Lex Deitz, founder of Illinois-based SIT Service Dogs.
Deitz and her husband, Daniel, trained Peter.
“We’re teaching the dog how to edit out all of those distractions,” Lex Deitz said. “Automatic doors. Beeping cash registers. People petting the dog when they’re not supposed to. … The dog needs to know it’s focusing on this one thing while blocking out all of this other stuff.”
Peter took about two years of training, from his birth in May 2019 to being given to Karin in November 2021.
“From a pup’s birth, they stay with the mom until 12 weeks of age,” Deitz said. “Then they start moving into full public access around 12 weeks of age, such as walking around in a vest, on a leash, potty training, sit down, wait.
“We start then grouping them according to their innate abilities. A dog using its nose a lot, that’s Peter. … A dog like Peter, around 10 months of age we know what he’s going to do, medical response, then we’ll start building on medical response.”
Deitz estimates Peter needed about 1,250 hours of training until he was ready to care for Karin.
The many hours of training for such complex duties explains the animal’s price tag.
“We paid somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000 (for Peter),” Jason Hostetter said.
To pay for the dog, Karin and the Hostetter family raised $19,189 from June to December 2020 through a GoFundMe campaign, which appeared in a story by LNP | LancasterOnline.
“It was huge,” Jason Hostetter said. “It was total strangers saying, ‘We saw her story. Here’s some money.’ We’re so thankful for that.”
Peter is in work mode when wearing an orange vest, but he’s just like any other 2-year-old dog when that vest comes off.
“He’s a very high-energy dog,” Karin said. “If I took off his vest, he would be running everywhere. Zoomies. He is crazy. He’s also very stubborn. … When his vest is off, he doesn’t listen to me. He knows I’m a pushover.”
“It’s funny, I thought we were getting a perfect dog,” Jason Hostetter said. “He is nuts when his vest is off. But he’s young. And he’s under a lot of pressure when he’s working. … So when he gets the vest off, he wants to blow off steam.”
“He’s a big chewer,” Karin said. “He chewed one of dad’s tables.”
Over the winter, Peter became a bit of a rock star when tagging along with Karin to basketball games at L-S, where her younger sister Kierstin was the starting point guard for the girls varsity team and younger brother Jared was a starting guard for the boys freshmen team. Peter often wore a blue bandanna with Kierstin’s jersey number (10) in white lettering.
“Everyone loves when he comes to the games,” Karin said. “He’s just here for the ride. He’s like, ‘I’m doing my job, but mom is taking me somewhere fun.’ ”
Jared Hostetter, 15, left, Karin Hostetter, 19, center, with her service dog two year old Labrador Peter and Kierstin Hostetter, 17, right, at Lampeter-Strasburg High School Friday Jan. 21, 2022.
The medical machine Karin carries with her to class pumps out up to 5 liters of oxygen per minute. She was recently informed by a doctor the machine is insufficient for what her worsening lungs now require.
“I’m supposed to be on 8 to 10 liters all the time,” she said.
An oxygen tank would provide 10 liters. She uses one of those at the Hostetters’ West Lampeter Township home.
“If I would have to carry around a tank, I would need a support human, which would be my mother,” Karin said. “My mom would have to come to class with me. So we’re trying to figure out a way to get more oxygen, but also fit with my lifestyle.”
There’s also the tricky balance for Karin, a former three-sport student-athlete at L-S, of having a lung disease but still needing to exercise.
“When you have a lung disease, it puts pressure on your heart, which is pulmonary hypertension,” Karin said. “Because I might have pulmonary hypertension, I still need to exercise. … Now it’s a tricky balance of you need to exercise, but you can’t overexert yourself because I can’t let my (blood) oxygen level dip below 90 (percent).”
Then there’s life amid a world now with COVID-19, a disease that often attacks the lungs.
“Any respiratory disease can totally destroy my lungs all over again,” Karin said.
Although she’s taken precautions, Karin hasn’t let the pandemic stop her from attending class, working a part-time job or going to her siblings’ athletic events.
“I’m smart about it,” she said.
A lung transplant would help.
“She has an opportunity with the transplant,” Jason Hostetter said. “Maybe to not live a normal life. … But a more normal life in being off oxygen.”
More than 80% of people survive at least one year after lung transplant. After three years, the survival rate post-transplant is between 55% and 70%.
“I’m trying to push it out and not deal with it right now,” Karin said. “It is really scary.”
The experience has opened Karin’s eyes to a possible career path as she studies toward a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
“I want to do clinical psychology,” she said. “I’d like to work in hospitals as a social worker and talk to kids who are going through the transplant process just like me.”
Given all she has been through, Karin is working toward the launch of a nonprofit aimed at helping others in need of money to purchase a service dog, and to provide money toward research on interstitial lung disease.
“I kind of had to stop working on it for a little bit because of my health and trying to figure out school,” she said. “But I’m planning on picking it up again soon.”
She’s juggling a lot, especially for a 19-year-old. Peter has made things a bit easier.
“He provides comfort,” Karin said. “He also helps with my mental health. He’s like my companion.”
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