Recently various petitions have been circulating the Diabetes Online Community, so today let’s pretend to write our own. Tell us who you would write the petition to – a person, an organization, even an object (animate or inanimate) – get creative!! What are you trying to change and what have you experienced that makes you want this change? (Thanks to Briley of inDpendence for this topic suggestion.)
My dog (one of my dogs) is not the smartest dog in the world. But, I’d like to make her try to be. I will liken her to the ‘simple’ dog described in this amazing post by Allie at Hyperbole and a Half. She is a 4 year old lab named Mellow. Her pastimes include tennis balls, chasing reflections of light, tennis balls, laying her head in your lap, getting in the bathtub, and eating treats. Oh, and tennis balls. Because she’s so awesome but not quite as smart as she is awesome, I’d like to create a petition for her to reach deep down inside her brain and find an innate ability to become a natural diabetes alert dog. Yes, I do already have a CGM.. but she’s cuter than my CGM, and it would be badass.
She sort-of looks like she could be a diabetic alert dog.
She can wear a backpack to carry all my supplies. But it makes her walk sideways.
She gets along with pancrei.
She barks, which could be an alert. She also whines, which could be another type of alert. Or it could mean she just can’t find her tennis ball.
She’s had a seizure before, so she can relate (one of the scarier moments of my life).
Since she likes tennis balls, I could probably teach her to fetch my supplies.
But when I tell her “Hey, I’m low. This is what I smell like when I’m low (I think that’s how they detect it).. so remember that for next time,” all she does is lick my face. Or try to shake. So she’s not quite there yet.
So we, the undersigned – the family and friends of Mellow Mel-Dash-O Yellow (her full name) petition her (Ms. Mellow) to do something besides fetch balls and reveal an undiscovered talent of sniffing out high and low blood sugars, thus performing the duties of a certified diabetes alert dog.
I might be biased, but which would you rather have tell you you’re 250 with double arrows up??
life: one unit at a time 