Type I diabetic raising funds for service dog

Tina Rhoades hasn’t slept through a single night the past year.

Every three hours, she wakes to the sound of her alarm and stumbles down the hall of her Lakeside home into her daughter’s room. Nine-year-old Courtney sleeps through the checks now, but when she was first diagnosed with Type I diabetes, the brief prick on her finger would wake her, too.

On a good night, Courtney’s sugars are within the normal range and Tina can return to bed until the next check. But if her levels spike, Tina will check every hour — a heavy burden for a single mother of two, balancing her career and college education.

She is exhausted, but she’s got no other choice.

For now.

Their world changed on Aug. 29, 2016.

Tina noticed that Courtney had been having extreme thirst and was getting up multiple times a night to use the restroom.

On the third night, Tina decided to investigate.

She typed Courtney’s symptoms into Google, which brought up information on diabetes — a condition that Tina knew little about.

The next morning, she made Courtney an appointment to get tested for the disease and later that day, her worst suspicions were confirmed.

“They said you have Type 1 and there is no cure and she will require insulin for the rest of her life. I was devastated — I still cry over it,” Tina said, blinking back tears. “You know what’s so hard is you have to put your child through so many painful procedures to stay alive.”

Type I diabetes is an incurable autoimmune disease that causes the pancreas to stop producing insulin, the hormone necessary for transporting sugars from the blood into other cells. Experts aren’t sure exactly what causes Type I, but know that it’s not a product of poor diet, as its Type II counterpart.

“We didn’t do anything to bring this on — I didn’t stuff my kid with sugar and bags of potato chips … and I think people think that,” Tina said. “They don’t realize that she did nothing. We lived a very active and healthy lifestyle.”

Normal blood sugar levels are between 70 and 120, but if unmanaged, Courtney’s sugars can skyrocket into the hundreds or drop to dangerous lows. Sometimes, she can sense the abnormalities, and other times, not until her levels are drastically out of range. A spike in either direction could mean serious trouble — the onset of diabetic ketoacidosis, a potentially fatal condition where the body produces high levels of blood acids, a coma or even death.

To help regulate her sugars, Courtney wears an insulin pump on her hip, which administers an hourly dose of the hormone throughout the day. But the pump is far from failsafe. Courtney or her mother have to regulate the amount the pump delivers every time Courtney eats, engages in physical activity, or grows. Adjustments often involve a lot of “guesstimation,” especially in scenarios when nutritional information isn’t readily available and getting that dosage wrong can cause real damage.

“Everything is being worn down when she’s not in range, and that’s why they call it the invisible disease because you don’t see all these thing that are going on in her body or how it’s affecting her overall health,” Tina said. “As a parent, it’s one of the scariest moments in your life because every second is critical. You don’t know if she’s going to pass out or go into a coma. Children die from it. I read about it every month.”

But there is hope for Courtney and her mother — and it has four legs and a tail.

The Rhoades family has been fundraising for the past year to purchase a diabetic alert dog from the Virginia-based company, Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers. The dogs are specially trained to detect sugar levels with the power of smell. The dog will accompany Courtney everywhere she goes — from school to the grocery store and at night. It’ll carry her diabetic supplies and even has the ability to call 911 in the event of an emergency.

“I don’t have a co-parent to say it’s your shift. I’m exhausted, so getting this dog would be a life-changer for me and her. We’ve been fundraising for a year and we just reached $10,000,” Tina said.

The alert dogs don’t come cheap — Courtney’s future pup will cost the family $25,000.

But for the Rhoades’ it’s worth every penny.

The dog will sleep next to Courtney and can wake her if her sugar levels fall out of range, allowing Tina a full night of sleep and peace of mind.

The alternative is a continuous glucose monitor, but unfortunately for Courtney, they just don’t work well with her body and aren’t as accurate — the most recent device Tina gave her daughter was off by 200 points.

“These monitors will do parts per million for your blood glucose — the dog can smell parts per trillion and the dog can also detect a high or a low 20 minutes faster than your monitor,” she said.

She and Courtney bake dog treats to sell at local farmers markets, yard sales and community events to raise the funds for the alert dog. They’ve also received help from Glacier Perks Coffee House in Lakeside, which sells used books on Courtney’s behalf, and Sliters Lumber in Somers and Lakeside, which raffled off a grill for the Rhoadeses. Every cent raised through their efforts goes straight into an account held by Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers so donations are tax deductible. Donate here: https://sdwr.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.personalCampaign&participantID=2272

Courtney said she’s “super, super excited” at the prospect of having a canine companion.

“It will be able to go everywhere with me and I think it would be fun to have a dog,” Courtney said.

“I would have to say it’s probably the only perk to having Type I diabetes is you get to have this dog be with you 24 hours a day,” Tina added.

Until they can raise the remaining $15,000, the three-hour blood sugar checks will continue.

“Every morning when I open that door, I say a little prayer that my daughter’s going to wake up,” Tina said. “Even though I’m checking her all night long, it can happen like that. The dog is just one more layer of security, one more way to make this disease a little more manageable.”

Reporter Mackenzie Reiss may be reached at 758-4433 or mreiss@dailyinterlake.com.