Thursday, September 15, 2011

Diabetes Symposium in Minneapolis

The Diabetes Symposium is being held in Minneapolis this year.  It will be very similar to the Transplant Summit that was held in Bethesda last November.  There will be eight islet cell transplant recipients present to tell their stories.  Dr. Hering will speak about islet cell transplants and Dr. Firpo will speak about her stem cell research for diabetes.  It will again be a great place to learn more about what is happening in diabetes research research for the cure.  I'm looking forward to seeing all of the Minneapolis SDI friends that I have made in the last three years.  It will also be fun to meet some more recipients in person.  I'll write all about it afterwards.

On the homefront, I just heard back from the nurse at the Nephrologist's office.  She told me that my labs came back ok.  I have a small amount of protein in my urine and my sodium is slightly lower than normal, but everything else looks fine.  I'm scheduled to have a renal ultrasound on Monday and I will have some more lab tests run before my appt in November to compare with these.  So, I won't be worrying about this.

I picked up my new foster Assistance dog on Thursday.  His name is Senator and he seems like a very nice dog.  He looks a lot like Dolly which was hard at first, but now we're getting used to having a new dog.  He has a different personality than Dolly.  He's not so afraid of things and not so inclined to jump on people.  He does have his own set of issues however.  He can be a barker at times which is totally unacceptable for an Assistance dog.  He barks with a high pitch bark when he wants Callie to play or something from us.  That is acceptable for now.  However, he also barks at things outside with a lower pitched bark.  This is not acceptable.  We're working on this and he might be getting a bark collar which sprays citronella when he barks.  Its actually kind of interesting to have a new set of problems.  I get to learn a wider cross section of training.  Part of getting him to quit barking might involve training him to bark on command and then training him to stop.  Cool stuff.  I didn't realize how much I would enjoy the learning aspect of training a dog.  Its a science in itself.

The Senator and Callie are already buddies.  And Callie is still the boss.

2 comments:

Mike Hoskins said...

Kathy: First of all, I love your blog. And Cassie rules.

But I didn't have another contact, and wanted to get your thoughts on this video news story... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrluMQgteXI

Feel free to drop a line by email... it's over on dblog!

Flynn Hoadley said...

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Flynn Hoadley
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