Profiles

My name is Jessica, and I am 15 years old. I’ve had diabetes – type 1 since I was 10 years old.

As I get older I want more independence, but, my parents have difficulty allowing that since I often have trouble with my Blood Glucose Levels.

When my Mum read about "Paws for Diabetes" last year she was very excited.

I got my beautiful little black and tan Chihuahua puppy last year, her name is "Lily". I choose her when she was one-week old, and I was able to collect her when she was six-weeks old. My Mum left an old T-Shirt so she we would be familiar when she came home with us.  She was about 10 weeks old when my mum started noticing that she was alerting, she was very excited.  We contacted “Paws for Diabetes” to see if they could help us train her, so Gail Armstrong and her daughter Cathy came over and met us and eventually we were accepted into the program.

Lily is the greatest four legged friend I could have.  She sleeps with me and when I am low she nibbles my fingers, if I don’t wake up she goes and jumps all over my mum to get her attention.  One day my mum was downstairs when I was having a hypo, so Lily brought me some biscuits (doggy biscuits).  My mum thought that was very sweet.  I take her with me almost everywhere, and she behaves very well.  She will stay in her bag when I eat and she never begs. 

She is still in training and she doesn’t always get it right, and she is mischievous, but she’s on her way to making me independent.

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