First some background. Michelle (my wife) has been dealing with diabetes for over a year now. She constantly monitors her blood sugar (blood glucose) level due to how it sometimes gets too low and other times rises too high.
Michelle takes diabetes pills. These medicines help 1) the blood sugar from getting too high, and 2) take the sugar out of the blood and get it into the body's cells, which makes the level of sugar in the blood go down. But sometimes it's a tricky balancing act and blood sugar levels can get too low.
One danger is that the blood sugar can fall fast enough and low enough to cause unconsciousness. It can get severe enough to cause unconsciousness during sleep. If you lapse into a diabetic coma, you’re alive – but can’t awaken or respond to sights, sounds or other types on stimulation. Left untreated, a diabetic coma can be fatal.
Ok, so Michelle was sleeping. Suddenly, Tootsie starts licking her face, something she has never done before. Michelle wakes up with Tootsie all in her face, licking her, and trying to wake her up. As soon as she was awake she realized she was in distress. She knew from past experiences her blood sugar was low. She got up and pricked her finger to find it was so low it didn’t even register. She ate some candy and ate an orange. The blood sugar slowly was raised to 51 and then to 57 and finally up to an acceptable level.
We have Tootsie to thank for recognizing the danger Michelle was in and waking her up. Tootise saved her life.
And then, later this week, it happened again. This time Michelle woke up with Tootsie clawing and scratching her face, again something she never does. Tootsie was determined to get her awake. And she did, in time for Michelle to correct the problem again.
There is an organization called Dogs for Diabetics, in which dogs are trained to alert diabetics of just such. They are trained to identify and act upon subtle scent changes that low blood sugar creates in body chemistry, changes undetectable to humans.
But our Tootsie wasn’t trained. She just came by it naturally I guess. Thank you Lord for sending us Tootsie. And thank you Tootsie for keeping my baby safe. Tootsie was a hero.
