Quincy, the glucose retriever,, lives with his T1 named Katie and her husband Troy … they are very smart people … and Quincy was very smart to choose this wonderful family! This is an amazing story … will bring tears to your eyes while you are smiling!
PLEASE, share your pet stories with The Savvy Diabetic! I’m posting stories on Fridays … and I consider these all miracle pets who live with us T1ds and help us cope and laugh and live well. Just send me a few pix and a short story about your pet … and your pet will be famous!!!
We got Quincy right before moving houses and only two month before getting diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS). Yes, something else that I didn’t know occurred more often in T1 diabetics. He was a godsend. He kept me company when I was too exhausted from radiation to do much more than lie around. A few weeks later, I was back to work and a few months later I was getting back to almost normal speed. And I didn’t want to leave Quincy at home. I would occasionally bring him to work but felt a little sheepish about it. I knew he wasn’t allowed.
Several months later, I had a really scary event happen at work. I thought I was telling my pump that I needed insulin for 10 grams of carb. Unbeknownst to me, I gave myself 10 units. Luckily I glanced at my pump a bit later and saw 10.6 units on board. Given that I use a total of 27 units most days, this was pretty scary. I wasn’t sure if I should rush to my endocrinologist’s or an Emergency Room. In my experience, ERs take forever and have limited knowledge of IDDM, so I drove to my endo’s office. Despite eating about 30 lifesavers and about as many glucose tablets, my bg dropped from 135 to 78 on the drive and was plummeting as they told me that they have no IV dextrose in the office. Shoot. I made the wrong decision. But the fire department could be there in four minutes with dextrose and the lowest I got was 32!!
After that I didn’t want to be alone with a low. I’d never felt that scared of becoming unconscious before. So I trained Quincy to retrieve my glucose tablets and push an alert button if I lost consciousness. He’s fabulous about the glucose retrieval. But he still has too many false negatives with the button alert. We’re working on it.
Quincy Rocks !!!