Heidi the Wonder Dog!

Last night started out like any other school night.

The Kids and I had dinner as usual, both did their BGL's and bolused for the carbs as usual (although "usual" for my teenage son involves about 10 minutes of nagging and then the house being turned upside down while he looks for his meter and then gives me 16 different excuses for why he hasn't done a SINGLE BGL test since the one I did on him when I woke him at 7am to get ready for school!).

After dinner our 19 month old Spoodle, Heidi, was laying across my daughter's legs. Heidi was grumpy, she had been unwell during the day (eating the contents of the cat's litter box probably didn't help!) - and just wanted to be left alone.

Normally Heidi will sit with me in the evenings because she knows that I just let her be, it's her "chill-out" time before she goes to bed. But last night, she chose to lay across my daughter's legs.

I went to give her a pet, just to let her know that I knew she wasn't feeling great. If the kids try to pet her when she's in "chill-out" mode she will growl at them, but she knows the difference between my hand and the kids - and never does it with me.

Last night she not only growled at me, she also snapped!

Hmmmmm - something not right here.

So, think back over the last 15 minutes or so - she has stuck to my daughter like glue.

Decide to tell my daughter to check her BGL - lots of arguing, "but I just checked half an hour ago! We just had dinner, and I had a snack afterwards, I tested, and bolused and I'm not going to test again! MY FINGERS ARE SORE!"

Heidi gets more grumpy and now has started barking.

Tell my daughter she has to test - eventually, reluctantly, she gives in.

2.9 mmol/L (52.2 mg/dl)!

Heidi the Wonder Dog KNEW that she was low, even though my daughter didn't - and hadn't even felt it!

Not only was she low, but she had 3.5 units of active insulin that had only gone through the pump 30 minutes ago - so she was likely to drop even further!

Good catch Heidi!

These photos were taken about a year ago - Heidi won't leave my daughter's side until 

she recovers from a particularly nasty hypo!

Heidi has not been trained to detect hypo's.

She came to live with us the day after my daughter was discharged from hospital after her diagnosis. I had made arrangements to adopt her several weeks beforehand. She was coming from a breeder that lived some 7 hours drive away from us, so my sister had agreed to pick her up (at that time she lived only 2 hours away from the breeder) and bring her down to us as a surprise for the kids.

Heidi was only 6 weeks old when she joined our family - and right from the start she would hang around my daughter whenever she was low and would not leave her side until her BGL's came back up again. I guess it's the Cocker-Spaniel in her - since they have an exceptional sense of smell.

This was the first time, however, that Heidi has been aggressive and so "vocal" about either of the kids being low - I put that down to her being a bit off colour herself for most of the day and just not having the patience or the energy for us mere humans to pick up her more subtle signs that something is not right.

Heidi, I don't know what we'd do without you!

Help us to try to get Dulux to support Type 1 Diabetes Research!

Today a member of one of the Diabetes Online Support Networks posted a picture of her T1D daughter with a huge tin of Jelly Beans she had received when buying some Dulux paint for her home this weekend. Naturally for a T1D family those Jelly Beans would be put to good use!

After checking out that photo I decided to head to the Dulux Australia Facebook page to let them know how their Jelly Beans are used in Type 1 families. There were a number of posts on that page from people saying that the Jelly Beans are a treat for their kids - or even that they "give them an energy boost" so they can get their painting done, so I figured they should know that for kids with T1D they can be a life-saver!

Here's a screen-shot of the Dulux page which shows my post - together with a number of "Likes".

Since the text is a little hard to read in the above image below is my comment on the Dulux FB page:

"Did you know that Jelly Beans are one of the most effective and convenient treatments for episodes of life-threatening hypoglycaemia in kids with Type 1 Diabetes (formerly know as Juvenile Diabetes)? Type 1 Diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease and is NOT related to obesity, poor diet or poor lifestyle choices, accounts for about 10% of all cases of "diabetes" in the world. Wondering whether Dulux has given any thought to supporting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation - since for many families with kids with T1D the Dulux Jelly Bean promotion doesn't just mean a bit of fun for the kids - it can mean a 6 month supply of hypoglycaemia treatment!"

If we can get enough "Likes" on this comment maybe Dulux will come to the party and support the JDRF or Type 1 Diabetes research generally!

Now wouldn't that be great!

Early morning thoughts...

Well, it's a little before 5am and I'm just killing time waiting to check on one of the kids. His BGL dropped a little low, so reduced basal rates on his pump and woke him up to make him have a drink of chocolate milk.

Waking a teenage boy in the wee hours of the morning and forcing him to eat or drink is no fun at all! Teenage boys like their sleep.

So, since I was up I went and checked on the other one - she'd had another fairly nasty hypo just before bedtime and has been running a little lower than I'd like overnight - but of course now she's having a rebound high - so I'll have to check on her again too in a little while to make sure she's on her way down.

Just another night.

Yesterday I met the mum of a recently diagnosed older teenager. Diagnosis with this disease is always difficult, no matter the age, however, meeting with this Mum yesterday really proved to me that for a parent this diagnosis is not any easier to handle just because your child is pretty much all grown up!

Diagnosis as an older teenager brings its own problems. These are kids who probably already have their driver's license, who are about to head out into the world on their own, who probably want to travel and experience all that life has to offer. It hit me that diagnosis at this age is nothing short of cruel - for the teenager and for their parents.

Speaking of teenagers and parents - this parent has to go and make sure that her teenager's BGL has returned to a safe level so we can get back to sleep.

JDRF Webcast (28 September 2011) about Glucose Responsive Insulin

Video streaming by Ustream

Prayers for Sarah...

Today our thoughts and prayers are with a much loved and admired member of the Diabetes Online Community, Karina Caton, and her precious little girl Sarah.

Sarah is now 3 years old however her very short life has been a constant struggle due to numerous medical issues discovered upon her premature birth, including Pancreatic Agenesis - the absence of a pancreas.

Please click HERE to view Karina's blog about her beautiful little girl.

Sarah suffered a severe hypoglycaemic episode yesterday and is fighting for her life.

To Karina, the beautiful Sarah and her brothers and sister, Kevin, Jessica and Cooper, from myself and my two amazing T1D kids, our love, thoughts and prayers are with you.

For more information about Sarah's current battle please click HERE.

Oops - nearly missed Clinic Day ... again!

So, had just dropped the kids at school - was about to go make my morning coffee, much needed after way too many interruptions to my sleep last night, when I received a phone call from the D clinic at the hospital.

Receptionist: "Hi, sorry I didn't call yesterday to confirm, was off work sick - but just a friendly reminder about clinic day."

Me: "Hey, that's okay - wasn't expecting a call from you until tomorrow anyway - can I just double check the time of the appointment - I have the date in my calendar but for some reason not the time."

Receptionist: "Why would I call tomorrow? The clinic appointment is today at 10:30am!"

Oh dear - I'm sure the lovely receptionist just rolls her eyes every time she has to phone me!

Looked frantically through my calendar - and sure enough - there it is, Clinic Day, Thursday 8 September, 10:30am!

For some crazy reason I had 12 September in my head - even though everywhere else it was listed as 8 September.

Still partially in my pyjamas (just threw on a pair of track-pants when I took the kids to school so that my pyjama top didn't look so much like pyjamas) - had to call school to tell them that I had to pick Miss I up from school before classes even started!

Of course the calendar alarm I had set for today's appointment went off just as Miss I and I were heading off to the appointment!

Definitely a bad case of "D-Brain" happening here! Soooooo forgetful!!!

Oh well, we made it on time and when scheduling next Clinic Day appointments set 2 audio reminders so that I could not possibly get the date wrong!

I suppose this is to be expected when you live on only a few hours sleep a night. Last night was a case in point. The kids are trialling a nocturnal hypoglycaemia device at the moment and, in addition to their regular overnight tests, the devices had automatically set alarms to wake me so that I could "recalibrate" them because they were apparently not happy with the BGL's I'd entered in before bed.

This would not be that much of an issue for just one kid - but with 2 kids and 2 devices - it had set different alarms based on the kids different bedtime BGL's! One of the devices had set a recalibration alarm for 10:30pm and the other for 12:30am - add to that my usual 3am BGL check - and the alarm that went off on Master T's device at 1:20am due to a "system error", and then the "Hypo Alert" alarm that went off on Miss I's device at 4:45am! Geez, no wonder I'm so tired!

Click on the image below to access a printable version of the 

JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes 2011 Poster (A4)