Category: Blog

I actually once had the crazy idea to teach a dog to wake me if my CPAP mask started leaking or shut off, and I gave it up about 10 minutes later.  Why?  No air and leaking masks ALWAYS wake me up.  Besides, that particular dog was actually afraid of the mask and getting it to be unafraid was a bit daunting.

Doesn’t seem to bother the current dogs, but I still won’t do it.  It’s a bit redundant.  It’s rather train agility.

So why won’t I train dogs to detect low blood sugar?

First you need reliability, and you need to know exactly what to train the dog for.  There are a bunch of people who claim you can use clothing that hasn’t been washed to train the dog.  Really?  What is your scientific evidence?  If someone dies of a low blood sugar and the dog doesn’t alert, can you really afford the law suit?  Thought not.  Oh, by the way, a bunch of attorney generals are after those people and the list gets longer every day (love Greg Abbott).

We trained on real when we could get it.  Real dope, real explosives, real dead people,  real bad people (okay, they were fireman, not really bad people, just dumb enough to get bit, but then they run into burning buildings – and that’s really funny when I say it in person, not so much in print). 

I trained a lot on synthetics.  Synthetics that were paid a ton of money for to be proven that they worked as good as the real.  Yeah, there is a company or two that makes stuff that smells like real dope, real dead people etc.  You might ask and see if they make “stink that smells exactly like person x when they have a low blood sugar”, but I think you won’t be able to afford it.  Also not sure you can prove it’s the same stink.

So to be truly reliable dog has to indicate only when person x is having a low blood sugar.  Do we know for a fact that they smell uniquely different?  How many false positives will you tolerate.  Actually now, having a dog that tells you every two hours that you need to check your blood sugar might be useful, but isn’t an alarm on your pump cheaper since it is on every pump on the market now?  There is also CGMs, the first few generations didn’t work for me, and I don’t have the money to waste, but still cheaper than training a dog.

The next problem is what breed should you use?

Bouvier’s were the first police dogs but they went out of the fashion because of the hair.  One of the most popular breeds of dogs for drug work are labs.  They are pretty single minded, and will stick to the job.  I’ve actually trained a border collie for drug work, but they are just too darn smart, they get bored and start making up their own game.

The Department of Agriculture uses beagles because every person who has ever owned a dog will tell you about that cute little beagle they had once (yeah, I get that too), and because beagles were born to find food (yeah, that’s what rabbits are – calories), and all you have to do is teach it not to eat the food which was bred into them too, they don’t eat the rabbit.  Granny is not going to be scared when “Snoopy” sits next to her suitcase.  In fact, she’ll probably haul out that food she didn’t tell you about it give it to Snoopy if you’re not careful.

So what would I use for a blood sugar detection dog?  I would want a dog that is single-mindedly devoted to the person and blind to all outside stimuli.  I really don’t think I want that dog, but you might.  It would be in your face constantly, Oh, yeah, that was the border collie I mentioned above. 

So you find the perfect breed of dog.  Guess how many we washed out of drug dog training.  A ton.  Go ask CCI and the Seeing Eye Dog people how many they wash out. 

So if you come home with a pup, don’t count on it doing the job.  It will also take several years or at least months to get enough training on it to get concentration.  I visited with a beagle who was a “special” this week and there was a huge difference between it and mine.  Mine knew how to learn since they started doing it when they hit the house, this one, not so much.  It takes several months of work to get that “how to learn thing”.

Back to what kind of dog, I also have figured out that I really don’t want that dog that is hanging about waiting for me to go low.  I kind of like the fact that Macy is in the corner of the room snoozing and not in my face.  Again, this is why the border collie went to live in a county to be a drug dog, and the beagles have stayed here.

By the way, the border collie I trained for drug work wasn’t happy unless he was working two shifts.  He wasn’t happy at my house at all because I didn’t keep him busy enough.  Do you really think sitting around waiting for you to go low would really be much of a life for that type of dog?

And yeah, taking a dog to work sounds like fun.  I’ve actually done it a few times, it is isn’t that much fun.  First you have to worry about when, how and where your dog is going to go to the bathroom.  Then you have to worry about how it’s going to react to strangers and your work mates.  It really takes away from your concentration.  It probably gets better after a few days, but still.

Honestly, that free blood sugar meter you can get from the endo. is sounding better and better every minute to me.  Hope I’ve convinced you.

If the above doesn’t remember, to get a truly reliable dog you’re going to have to produce some artificial control lows.  I don’t trust anyone on the planet well enough to do that.

I’m non-diabetes sick. Either a cold or the flu. At any rate, I am fighting it off well. I think the worst of it was yesterday afternoon when all I could do is sleep – that’s what happens when I get regular sick – I just go to sleep. Should be over it by tomorrow at the rate things are going.

Category: Exercise

When I first started following @lafitness they suggested each time you get home from the gym immediately pull out you used stuff from your gym bag and restock.

I go one step further and keep two gym bags in my car. One has exercise gear in it plus I keep a pair of shoes in the car and if I get the urge to work out after school, I am go to go.

My second bag is my before school bad and has everything I need to get ready for school at the gym.

No excuses.
Sent from my Windows Phone

Here’s the full account of what is going on.

I have a paid for a year Ning account and have had it since they opened up the service.

Over a month ago, I created a “free trial” network.  There was no response so about three weeks ago I decided to close it.  Guess what, there is NO way to close a @ning network once you open it.

I had particular problems because I used a hyphen in the email account, their ticket system wouldn’t even take a ticket.  It took over a week to resolve the problem but I do understand because this was Thanksgiving week.

But guess what, after I opened the ticket, they closed it with no response AND then tried to bill me again.  The good news is if you go to the network, it says it closed (maintenance issues) and Paypal won’t give them my money.

I’ve yet to see any other system this screwed up in years.  Compuserv was this bad about billing and for years a collection agency had a few months of Compuserv billing that I refused to pay as I wasn’t using the service.

In other words, find somewhere else to keep up with your groups rather than @ning.

Haven't been sleeping well-mask wakes leaking. 

Have had problems with this mask from the beginning. Had trouble adjusting to it.

Here's the weird part is that I am back with my original mask.

Even weirder is that the dogs seem bound and determined that I don't use the bad mask the have chewed up two old inserts in the past days but leave the good one alone. Not sure how the are getting them.

Sent from my Windows Phone

This weekend, one of the diabetes twitters was upset with her diabetic daughter because the daughter left the house without enough test strips.

I answered,"Been there, done that, 8 years diagnosed, 50 years old”.

I think I helped mom.

We all have lapses when it comes to doing anything, including caring for ourselves. I do keep spare things, but in the last month I’ve left my blood sugar monitor at school (on Friday night), and have more than once, not put enough test strips in my bag.

Hey, I am pretty sure my driver’s license is in my scanner at school right now, and will be running by to pick it up.

So mom’s don’t be so hard on us.  You make mistakes too.  In fact, I recently found out my mother stopped testing (she’s diabetic too – guess where I got it – though I really think mine came from my father’s side).  It was quite satisfying to be justified on jumping on her case.

I was diagnosed with diabetes at the beginning of the school year, 2002.  At the time, apparently my pancreas completely failed, because no amount of oral meds helped.  Went on insulin pretty quickly.

Have been on an insulin pump since 2004.  It’s made a huge improvement on my life, but it still sucks.

I have to think about everything bit I eat, bolus for it, test for it two hours later.  Though it has made me a bit healthier.

While it would be nice there was a cure, especially for Type 1.  I doubt there will be one any soon for someone like me, who has genetic Type 2 and has trouble dealing with their weight and other issues.

Here are my 6 things:

1. Diabetes often gets in the way of the things I want to do.  It makes me tired, it makes me hard to get along with.
2. I x-th that it is a Time Thief.  Adding time to meals, stealing time to test, etc.  Oh, and then there’s the doctor’s visits.
3. It’s a money thief.  Even with insurance, the out of pocket costs are horrible.
4. It’s painful.  From blood tests to insulin injections to site insertions.

Okay, today I can only do 4.

Wonder if diabetes is causing the writer's block.

The reason I haven’t been posting lately is that my plate is too full.

Most of that is a good thing.  My students keep me incredibly busy during the day – making sure they are on task and grading everything as quickly as possible.

Some of my day is flat out frustration.  We have been living in a construction zone since last April.  They have been working on our HVAC since then.  In fact they were welding in front of my door most of the time through July and August.  Here’s the deal though.  We have great ventilation and temperature control in the halls, NONE in our rooms.  I actually do for a few minutes in the morning, but then it quits, and doesn’t pick back up.  Unfortunately my room faces South with a huge bank of windows.  So it gets incredibly hot.  I didn’t think it could even GET this hot.

Also, the parents keep pulling into my parking space WHILE I have a turn signal on, signally I’m turning left.  Today the parking lot was restriped and I had to count and while I was doing that, mom in truck pulled in front.  I wasn’t near as upset about that one as I was the previous oblivious parent.  I keep wondering who they are actually going to run over.

We can’t lock ours.  They replace nice heavy doors, with hollow doors which have windows.  We have to wait for the district lock smiths to make keys for the doors.  They are usually pretty quick but can’t start until all our doors are installed.  We have some that are still missing, we don’t know why.

Training two dogs keeps me busy too.  Right now, I have two classes with Dulce (but one of those is ending next week), and one class with Macy.  Technically I have two, but I gave up on the second one.  Too far away and too frustrating, as they use a totally different training method.

Which brings me to the main reason I’m blogging.  People keep giving me reasons to stress out.  Example, I show up at the local training class and am nailed as I am coming in to sign in and told my dog has to wear a diaper.  Yes, they pee in the class, I am still having trouble figuring out their schedule but have discovered that if I go into a class, the dogs needs to pee within the first 5 minutes of class and that walking them around doesn’t work.  I have to actually do a couple of obstacles first.

So last night, we did about 5 minutes of training, I went outside and she peed right away.  To play it safe, I took her out two other times. 

However, I’m not thrilled with that place.  Their idea of climates to be keeping the doors open.  If I wanted to breath outside air, I’d be at an outside facility (and have my name on a waiting list).

The instructors are lousy.  The first instructor I stopped going to there, cannot think outside the box at all.  I have beagles, to train them, you have to think outside the box.  I’d already tried any of her ideas and they didn’t work and I was looking for new ideas.  Also I wanted someone who actually taught, not one that set out a random course, sat on her butt, and told us what we did wrong.  Again, all her ideas were stuck soundly in the box.

The second instructor I worked with for months, and then discovered what I had already suspected, my dog couldn’t do common household stuff, like stays and walking on a leash.  Dog can walk like a conformation dog or walk in the park but not anything between.

I can’t decide if she can’t follow a lesson plan or can’t write one.  The result is the same.

Their third instructor is a great instructor except her husband is stationed oversees and when he comes home, she disappears without warning.  I don’t blame her, but I want to go to class. 

I really like their fourth instructor and I am currently starting next week, signed up with two classes with her.  However, the second instructor told me last night that my dogs had to wear a diaper if I trained there. 

I AM NOT RUNNING MY DOG IN AGILITY WITH IT IN A DIAPER.

If that is insisted, give me my money.  Please, they are dogs, I pick up after them.  Oh, and why don’t you get on dogs that drool all over the place?  Isn’t that as bad?

Just got my A1c and it's 7.6 — much better than the 8.4 in August or 9.0 in May. 

Those who keep up with these things will remember that I let my blood sugar get completely out of control in May.

Feeling a bit better over all too.

Not as easily as I did the week before Parent Conferences, and I think one of the reasons is my sleeping issues.  Kids are bothering my not working — CS is fine, it’s the Web Design kids that aren’t working.

But I’m slowly losing weight.  Unfortunately I am also still having trouble with some foods.