17/11/2024
Here is a great example of where service dogs can help fill in the gaps of the amazing diabetes technology that we rely on to keep Rylie healthy.
This is her glucose monitor. It lasts for 10 days. It takes readings of her blood sugars (interstitial fluid) every 5 minutes. She still has 5 days left of her 10 days on this sensor but the last two days it has been “glitching.” This can be for various reasons - like coming loose on her skin, laying on it with too much pressure while she sleeps, or just a ‘bad’ sensor that was never going to last the full ten days anyway. This happens more often than we care for. Mostly because we rely on her CGM readings so much that when they fail to work properly, we have to stop what we’re doing and figure out what’s going on. Manually checking her blood sugar with a finger poke, calibrating the numbers on her CGM app, examining the CGM insertion site to make sure it’s not coming up out of her skin, figuring out if it’s a bad sensor or just acting weird for a short period of time and will be back to normal after the next reading or two, figuring out if we need to replace it completely and dreading making her poke herself with another needle to put another one on… the list goes on.
It’s another example of the ways that diabetes is ever-present and needing constant management and oversight.
If Rylie’s dog was here, we would know if her numbers were out of range before her CGM even catches on or has the chance to “glitch”. Thats invaluable. Her diabetic alert dog is another tool we can use to keep her safe and healthy and allow her to be a kid. It is moments like these that we really can’t wait to bring our Maisie home!
