Her nose knows

By CANDACE CHASE

Poodle monitors child's blood sugar

The Daily Inter Lake

Tinkerbell, a fluffy white toy poodle, raises eyebrows as she prances along in a tiny service-dog vest beside 9-year-old Taylor Diehl.

"Since Taylor looks like a normal kid, people don't know she has a disability," said Kim Diehl, Taylor's mom.

Diehl didn't know, either, until she traveled with her daughter to Oakland, Calif., to visit Taylor's step-grandmother in January.

Taylor recalled that she was drinking lots of water and was tired all the time.

Her mother said the little girl also had lost about 20 pounds without changing her diet. At the time, Diehl attributed the weight loss to a growth spurt.

Her step-grandmother, a diabetic, recognized Taylor's symptoms and tested her blood sugar. It was a whooping 406, almost four times above a typical reading.

Diehl called Taylor's health-care provider at Family Healthcare who urged her to take her daughter to the hospital. But she didn't follow the advice immediately.

"I was in denial," she admits. "I thought 'This isn't happening. No one in my family has diabetes.'"

Fear finally motivated the Diehl to take Taylor to Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland. Taylor, with her mom at her side, spent three days in the intensive-care unit, learning to cope with Type 1 diabetes.

At first, her mom gave her the shots, but Taylor learned to do it on her own.

"It was kind of freaky at first," Taylor said.

For the first three months, she had to take shots of two types of insulin about five times a day.

When the two got home in early February, they learned that Tinkerbell sensed Taylor's blood sugar fluctuations and was trying to alert them.

"I didn't put two and two together until early March," her mom said.

Diehl, who breeds poodles, said that Taylor and Tinkerbell had bonded from almost the day the dog was born as the runt of a litter of seven dogs. Once aware of Taylor's blood sugar problem, Diehl noticed a pattern to Tinkerbell's pawing and licking.

"Every time she would go low, Tinky would do that," Diehl said.

Without fail, Tinkerbell would begin pawing and licking when Taylor's blood sugar fell below 55. For her, normal blood sugar averages about 125.

"She even wakes up my mom when I'm asleep and my blood sugar is low," Taylor said.

Diehl said all diabetics give off distinctive scents when their blood sugar goes high or low. Tinkerbell learned to identify the lemon scent that signifies low blood sugar.

"High blood sugar smells like Juicy Fruit gum, of all things," she said with a laugh.

Out of a menagerie of four poodles, two boxers, five cats, three horses, a goat, five chickens and a turkey named Frank, Tinkerbell remains the only member of the Diehl pet clan to develop extra sensory powers.

Word has traveled across Montana about Tinkerbell's abilities. Taylor's endocrinologist, Dr. Chris Corsi in Missoula, told Taylor he had heard about the poodle's diabetic service.

Diehl said she considered working with Tinkerbell to teach her to identify the high-blood-sugar scent. But since Taylor received a insulin pump in April, she has much better control and has fewer high-blood-sugar episodes.

"This pump gives her little doses every hour," Diehl said. "When she wants to eat, I just enter the carbs into it."

However, they must still check her blood since the pump doesn't provide continuous blood monitoring. Tinkerbell still sounds the alarm about low blood sugar but the incidents have dropped to two to three times a month.

Taylor has learned to identify low-blood-sugar symptoms on her own. She said she begins to feel shaky and tired.

Diehl said a lot of children never learn to monitor themselves.

"If you go too low, you pass out," Diehl said.

She said she hopes to form a parent-child support group in the Flathead for children coping with diabetes to share their knowledge as well as to learn from others. Diehl asks people interested in forming such a group to call her at 756-0679.

Taylor and Diehl credit Tinkerbell with opening doors to meeting new people while explaining to the skeptical that even tiny toy poodles have the power to serve as more than a little girl's best friend.

"Lots of times I wonder what we would do without Tinkerbell," she said. "She gives Taylor a lot of self-confidence."

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.