The Kid with the Dog

Last Thursday, I attended a meeting at work without my cell phone. The one hour meeting ended up lasting two hours. When I got back to my office, I had missed two calls — one from Austin and one from the school nurse. They were trying to reach me because Austin's blood sugar was 500 and he had small ketones.

In his condition, he couldn't walk home from school as planned, so he needed to be picked up. With me unreachable and his typical ride home out of town, Austin called our neighbors — Syl and Gil. And, as they've done so many times before, they swooped in and saved the day for our family. Syl was there to answer Austin's call and Gil was there to pick him up at school and bring him home. When I finally returned the missed calls, Austin was home and his blood sugar was on a downward trend.

Later that evening as I reflected on the incident, I couldn't help but think how Bo could have prevented the dangerous high and ketones, if he had been at school with Austin. I have no doubt Bo would have alerted in time to treat the rise in blood sugar before it got to an unsafe number. He also would have continued to alert, leading Austin to re-check. Bo wasn't at school because Austin has not wanted to resume taking him to school since he stopped attending with him in December. Austin says he wants to bring Bo back to school but so far he has not.

During a recent appointment with Austin's endocrinologist, Austin shared his feelings about bringing Bo to school expressing the extra work involved with being responsible for a dog at school. Later in an unrelated conversation with me, he made a reference to 'being the kid with the dog' at school. I know taking a dog to school is a big responsibility. I also know having a dog at school draws a lot of unwanted attention. I've chosen to leave the decision of whether or not to take Bo to school up to Austin. When we are going out in public, I always ask him if he wants to bring Bo or leave him home. Lately, he's opted to leave him home. Today, Austin had a medical appointment for an acute illness. Like I always do, I asked him if he wanted to take Bo to the appointment. I expected him to say, no. To my surprise, he said yes.