Dogs 4 Diabetics rolled out their new website which includes a feature highlighting this dynamic duo. Click here or on the photo above to see it for yourself.
Hyatt will be signing autographs later this week.
Now here's where it gets fun. While you are on the Dogs 4 Diabetics page, head on over to the donate page, drop some cash into the D4D till and I will make it worth your while.
I am offering the chance to win a custom hand-knit hat as a Thank You for donating. If there are any doubts about my knitting skills, check them out here, here or here. You can chose the yarn color and even specify the pattern (beanie? slouchy beret? earflaps? adult? child?). And I am a yarn snob, so you won't be getting any cheap acrylic yarn. Think Malabrigo (aka, knitters crack).
Leave a comment below letting me know that you donated, by midnight PST on Monday March 19, 2012, and I will use a random number generator to select a winner by lottery. If you donate more than $50, I will throw in a newborn hat for you to gift to a new baby in your life. And don't lie about donating, I have ways of checking, plus, karma will so get you. Upon being selected, I will ask for proof of your donation before confirming you as the winner.
Now to get serious. Type-1 Diabetes, or juvenile onset diabetes, is a crappy disease. It arrives when you are a kid, and stays for the rest of your life. There is no cure, and there is currently no real understanding as to how a child gets the disease. Your body stops making insulin, which is the hormone that processes sugar, so you have to inject the exact right about of insulin each time you eat anything with carbs. You better be good at math. On top of that, you have to test your blood sugar up to 10 times a day (sometimes even more) to make sure your body is processing everything correctly. Too much insulin/not enough sugar, you go low and at best are dizzy, can't think, and slur your words. At worst, you risk coma or death. 2-6% of Type-1 diabetics die in their sleep from low blood sugar. Not enough insulin/too much sugar, and you go high, with blood thick in your veins, a foggy mind, and nausea. Let's not forget damage to your nerves. Many type-1 diabetics will go blind as a result of high blood sugar nerve damage. On top of that, exercise, stress, lack of sleep, you name it, can affect how your body uses insulin. It's not uncommon for B to be working in the yard and stopping every 30 minutes to guzzle Gatorade or gnaw on glucose tabs because his sugar is plummeting.
Because there is no cure, type-1 diabetics and their parents (remember, for the most part, it hits in childhood, as early as age 2) have to learn how to manage their disease, and fast. There are all sorts of gadgets out there that do their best at electronic micro management, but (a) they are not always reliable and (b) you have to stick yourself with a needle to get any information.
Enter Dogs 4 Diabetics. These dogs are trained to pick up the scent a diabetic's body emits when their sugar is dropping, and alert the diabetic that a low is on its way. It's magicial, painless, and SAVES LIVES. The trainers at D4D teach the dogs not to give up on their alert until they get treated. Hyatt will start with his normal alert, and then move to dancing, alerting me, jumping on the bed, and if we are still not believing him, he will whine and finally, bark. I can't even count how many Saturday mornings I have been in the kitchen and B is still sleeping when Hyatt starts his dance, leads me to the bedroom, and jumps on the bed. Sure enough, B is usually between 68 and 54 (approaching coma-numbers for some). I shove a handful of glucose tabs in his mouth and he goes back to sleep. It's scary to think how the morning would be different if Hyatt was not there.
So donate! Read the other personal stories on the Dogs 4 Diabetics site to hear how others' lives have changed after being paired with alert dog. This organization is wonderful. They provide the dogs free of charge to their clients, which means one less bill to worry about on top of the lovely pile medical bills that accompany the disease. But no charge for dogs means D4D relies entirely on donations, and it's not cheap to train these dogs.
So give D4D your money, and I will knit one of you a hat. Heck, if I get more than 50 comments with donations, I will pick two winners. I'm feeling knitty.
The fine print: Comments must be entered by 11:59 p.m. PST on March 19, 2012. Upon being selected, you must provide proof of your donation be confirmed as the winner. If the person selected did not, in fact, make a donation, I will select another (proper) winner. Because the hat is made to order, please allow for 2-3 weeks knitting time (I have a day job, you know) once you chose the pattern and yarn color. This offer is limited to a single color hat, we'll save the fancy colorwork for gold status donations. Seriously though, if you donate over $500, no need to be chosen at random, you will just get a hat, in as many colors as you want. I will pay the cost of yarn and of shipping to a destination of your choice. Only one entry will be counted per person.
