Mady's Way
Over the years I have had many friends and acquaintances that have had diabetes. I have had students in our school that have had to routinely check their “levels” to insure their blood sugar and insulin levels were at the right amount in order to prevent a Hyperglycemic event. We all know people who have to do this on a daily basis and we feel for them and the disruption it has on their daily lives. But we know the alternative is much worse. “Hyperglycemic Unawareness”-not checking and monitoring blood sugar levels in someone who is diabetic- could have disastrous even fatal results.
Now consider the difficulty when the person with the diabetic condition is a young child. The adults and high school students I have experience with, that have had diabetes and have had to go through these routines of checking levels and taking insulin shots. They have all experienced times that they may have “forgotten” to check their levels, maybe they ate something that they were not aware of how much sugar it contained, even different daily amounts of exertion can cause a raise or fall of sugar in a diabetics’ blood creating a dangerous hyperglycemic event. Having a toddler or a kindergarten age child with this condition must be extremely exhausting and nerve racking for the parents and family involved in this child’s life.
As is the case so many times, nature has a solution. We all know that service dogs have been trained to lead the blind, provide companionship for the elderly and even provide emotional support for people with disabilities. It has also been shown that dogs can be trained to alert their owners when they sense a change in their human companions’ blood levels and can do so at very early stages of a hyperglycemic event. As you can imagine, it isn’t cheap to train a service dog to reliably possess these skills. However, think of the peace of mind the parents of a young child with Juvenile Diabetes would have knowing their kid’s blood levels were constantly being monitored by the child’s best friend and constant companion.
Mady’s Way is a non-profit organization whose mission it is to provide diabetic alert dogs to families with diabetic children. It is an expensive proposition to train a service dog to respond to a hyperglycemic event. But many national insurance companies now recognize the service as a legitimate way to monitor insulin levels in diabetic individuals. If you ever want to donate money to a cause that is worthwhile and will put a smile on your face, just think of the smiles on the faces of the parents and the young child who meets their diabetic alert dog for the first time knowing that this gentle friend is also capable and ready anytime day or night to alert the family if the child’s blood levels change probably before anyone else is even aware there may be a problem.
I’ve been working this month to create awareness of Mady’s Way and its mission. We have been doing several fundraisers to bring money in to the organization to help with that mission and to try to be a part of that effort to match a service dog with a young child.
Throughout the month of March you can help this cause without spending a dime….
Go to Mark Fisher Outdoors on Facebook and “Like” that Facebook page
Share this story and get others to do the same
I will donate $1.00 for every new “like” the page receives during the month of March and I encourage you to go to WWW.Madysway.org to get more information.
