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Serious is alerting to lows and highs

Serious is starting to show some regularity alerting to highs and lows. Tonight he alerted hubby about an hour before he went low. Last night he did the same thing. Hubby told me yesterday he is noticing more problems with unawares. He used to slip into comas a lot before he got his pump and sensor. We got Serious to prevent that from starting again and it looks like we made a good choice. Serious woke hubby up in the middle of the night because he was going low. Tonight he wouldn't quit again and an hour later he started going low. We often don't hear his sensor at night under the covers, or the sensor gets too far from the pump and doesn't alert properly. The other challenge we have is the averages are sometimes considerable higher than his low glucose level so hubby does not feel an urgency to double check his levels.

My notes may make it sound like having a pump and sensor does not work well. Please don't misunderstand my comments. Hubby hasn't gone so low to be in a coma since he got the pump but as his body builds up more resistance it may start again and we want to reduce the chances by having the dog as well.

He is Serious about his work

Serious has adjusted well to our family. When my hubby is not here he plays well with the kids. He has bonded well with my oldest son and follows him when my husband is not home and he is not working. We are not taking him in public yet because he is not ready. He will get fixed next week and then we will work harder at public access.

Serious does seem to understand when my husband needs help. We woke up a couple of nights ago because Serious climbed on the bed and onto my husband in the middle of night the other night. My husband was high and his sensor was dying. Serious was laying directly on top of my husband and looking him straight in the face and licking him. There have been at least two other occasions this week when my husband was high and Serious went over, got into his personal space and started licking his arm which we have been trying to teach him to do when my husband is high.

We are not sure about whether he is signalling yet for lows but we think he is. Earlier this week, my husband had eaten and given himself some insulin when Serious came over and started licking him. My husband was high but since he had taken some insulin he thought maybe he was dropping and that is what Serious was alerting to. We were going to check later but my husband did not mention whether he had to eat later because he was low from taking too much medicine. So I do not know for sure if Serious was alerting early to a low blood sugar. We will continue to monitor this.

Serious thinks work is play

Serious is a big kid who loves to play because it means he gets lots of attention. He is doing very well with basic commands but still having challenges with recall when out in public. I took him to the dog part yesterday to work with him in a large fenced in area. We have to work in an area where there are no other dogs so he doesn't become distracted. After about 45 minutes he settled down and decided to pay attention. I have decided that for awhile we need to do this type of workout regularly until he can do the recall no matter what.

Hubby has decided that the best way to work with Serious on the weekend is to leave his CG monitor off and just test regularly. This gives Serious a true chance to alert. I do not sleep as well when we are doing this but I feel a little better this morning. I noticed that Serious sleeps harder when hubby is snoring but when there is no snoring Seriuos is more alert and not snoring himself. Odd.

Hubby also thinks that he did alert once yesterday. Seriuos favorite game is find the meter. We keep putting it away and he keeps bringing it back. Of course he has to get praise for this! Hubby went low while they were intentionally playing "find the meter" but stopped and wouldn't go get the meter. He started to lick at hubby's arm. Hubby tested and was on the low side although he was not very low. Still he would have been considered low so it counts.

Well, off for training. We do free time first for about 45 minutes so he can settle down and run off any steam. Then we take a break for bit while I work with the kids on homework. Periodically, we take a couple of minutes to play a game with him during a homework break. A few hours later we have mroe serious training of basic commands with a potty break and then he can sleep for awhile while I get my work done. This seems to be the routine we are settling into. In the evening he works and plays with Hubby when he comes home from work.