[00:00:33] Dannelle: In last week’s episode, we explored how service dogs are trained and matched to their human’s unique needs. From chronic illness to other medical needs, these amazing dogs have the ability to provide vital assistance and reliable support for their human partners. They not only bring a sense of companionship, but can also serve as an invaluable lifeline on a person’s care team. This week, Chronic Illness and Disability Advocate, Cienna Ditri sheds light on the immense impact that her service dogs Piper and Pamina have had on her day-to-day life. 

[00:01:18] Welcome to The Caregiving Soul. I’m Dannelle LeBlanc.  

[00:01:25] [Music Ends] 

[00:01:25] Cienna: So, I have quite a few diagnoses, but one of those is definitely hypokalemic periodic paralysis. It is a genetic disorder, and it is a rare disorder. So, basically for me, it’s just a very fancy way of saying that when my potassium drops I can have anywhere from muscle weakness to full body paralysis. My first diagnosis was with chronic migraines, and before that I was born prematurely. 

[00:01:51] Dannelle: And so now as a young adult, of course you are living your life and want to live as independently and safely as possible with these conditions. And so we are happy to welcome Piper and you have another service dog, Pamina. Can you introduce us to Piper and Pamina and what the process of getting a service dog? How did you first meet them? 

[00:02:29] Cienna: Let’s see where to start. [Laughs] Piper’s turning six years old in August, so we’re very excited. It’s almost his birthday. But I met Piper when he was eight weeks old, and I met him very suddenly because my service dog before Piper retired very suddenly cuz he developed seizures. So, since he had a disability, he couldn’t be my service dog anymore. But at the same time, I couldn’t function without a service dog. 

[00:02:57] So, I think I was without a service dog for one or two weeks, and I was in the ER literally every single day cuz I was just passing out so much. I was hitting my head when I passed out. My blood sugar was dropping, I didn’t know it. Like, I was having allergic reactions, just lots and lots of bad things all the time. 

[00:03:15] So, I have a service dog trainer and I gave her a call and she already knew what was going on, and we got really lucky. So, she talked with my doctors and figured out what I was going to need in this new service dog. And she matched what I needed with a breed. And at the time my mast cell activation syndrome was so bad, I was reacting to everything. 

[00:03:38] So, my trainer found Wirehaired Vizslas and their wired hair – nothing can stick to it too much. They have a great on and off switch, so if I’m not feeling good, like he could lay down with me and be all cuddly all day and then like when I’m feeling good and going, like he’s gonna keep going too. He’s not gonna get too tired to do that. And all the alerts I need him to do all day long. 

[00:04:00] So, we thought it was gonna be really hard to find one. And we got really lucky. We met the first breeder and there were two dogs that tested in his litter that would’ve been good picks as service dogs. But Piper was super interested in my scent. He kept like jumping up on me and licking me and he was just this little puppy and my trainer was like – 

[00:04:21] Dannelle: [Laughs] 

[00:04:21] Cienna: “That’s what we want. He’s gonna be able to do all the alerts we need. This is the one. He’s going home with you today”. [Laughs] And he did. So, he’s been with me ever since then. [Laughs] 

[00:04:31] Dannelle: Oh my God. What a godsend. 

[00:04:34] Cienna: I know he’s a very special boy. [Laughs] 

[00:04:38] Dannelle: That is amazing. It’s so interesting, it didn’t occur to me that there would be that type of complex coordination – 

[00:04:50] Cienna: Yeah. 

[00:04:50] Dannelle: – between your medical providers. That is really amazing. Um, what a – 

[00:05:01] Cienna: Yeah. 

[00:05:01] Dannelle: – godsend. 

[00:05:02] Cienna: We took what I thought I needed and like my opinion and their medical opinions and my mom’s opinions and the service dog trainers, and we put them all together to figure out exactly what I need. And that’s kind of how we work as a team. 

[00:05:16] I’ll talk with my doctors and then we’ll talk with my trainer and then we’ll talk with people in my life and all together, we’ll be like “This is what it needs to look like now”, because my disability is dynamic, so it’s kind of ever changing. So, their job is also ever changing. 

[00:05:28] Which – Piper loves learning new things and so does Pamina. So, it, it worked out very well for them. [Laughs] But yeah, I got very lucky and we got even luckier. We found out that the breeder had hypoglycemia. So Piper, within his first week home was actively alerting to my hypoglycemia, because he was used to the scent from his breeder. 

[00:05:53] And so when he recognized it in me, he was – when puppies, they don’t know how, like you haven’t taught them the scent yet. They don’t know what to do. So, he was just getting like really excited, and we realized that those moments correlated with my blood sugar dropping. So, that wasn’t gonna be the first alert that he learned, but it was, and that’s what we went after first with our training because he already knew what it was. He just had to be told how to tell us. So, he’s a very smart –  

[00:06:21] Dannelle: Wow. 

[00:06:21] Cienna: – little miracle dog. [Laughs] 

[00:06:24] Dannelle: Wow. I’m blown away by your care team. So, what are some of the specific skills that he’s learned to be able to provide that level of support? 

[00:06:39] Cienna: Yeah, the first alert Piper was going to learn to tell me before I passed out cuz we all decided that that was most dangerous and that needed to be taken care of first. So, he was gonna learn that first, but we kind of had to readjust cuz he wanted to learn hypoglycemia first. And that’s fine. We were all happy with that.  

[00:06:57] So, to let me know that I have low blood sugar he boops me with his nose. So, if this is like my hand or my leg or something, he’ll just come up with his nose and give it a good nudge and that’s how he tells me my blood sugar is low. And he’ll wake me up in the middle of the night poking me, just whenever. He actually gets really happy when it’s low cause, don’t tell anybody, but sometimes I share my snacks. So, [Laughs] 

[00:07:26] Dannelle: [Laughs] 

[00:07:26] Cienna: Um, he loves it. [Laughs] So, after – he learned that and the syncope alert pretty quickly right next to each other, cuz we knew that those were the – 

[00:07:37] Dannelle: Can I just interject – syncope alert? I just wanna make sure I understand the words you’re saying and what they mean. 

[00:07:43] Cienna: Mm-hmm. So, Piper will let me know before I pass out. So, Piper can give me about like a 15 minute warning-ish before I pass out and let me know so I can get to a safe position. And then I’ll elevate my legs. I’ll do what I need to do. And sometimes, mostly now like I won’t even pass out cuz we have our system now. We know what we’re doing, and because of Piper and my medical team, I haven’t passed out since November and that’s the longest that’s ever been since I – 

[00:08:12] Dannelle: Wow. 

[00:08:12] Cienna: – haven’t passed out. So, he alerts to my passing out. He alerts to my hypoglycemia. [Laughs] He umm – 

[00:08:20] Dannelle: There’s so much! It’s so much! 

[00:08:21] Cienna: I know! Too – my mast cell activation reactions, so they’re kind of like allergic reactions. 

[00:08:29] Dannelle: Mast cell activation reactions. What does that mean? 

[00:08:33] Cienna: Basically my mast cells in my body, they’re hyperactive. So they’ll create reactions just to literally anything. So, having him alert to that, he lets me know before I even know I’m having a reaction. So, I can take like my rescue meds. And now I might not even know, like I might just get like a little red or flushed or something instead of having like hives and like my throat getting closey and stuff like that. Like we don’t have to do that anymore. So, that’s a great one that he does too. 

[00:09:06] A really important one that Piper does is he can let me know when I stop breathing. So, I have hypothalamic dysfunction, so my hypothalamus in my brain, it doesn’t do too much, so it doesn’t tell me to breathe. I have a diaphragm pacemaker that breathes for me, but I can’t use it in the shower. So, I have to unplug from it and then my brain’s still not telling me to breathe, so it turns into a kind of dangerous situation. 

[00:09:35] So, what we do is I listen to music while I’m in the shower and I like focus on when the musician is breathing and then that’s when I breathe. But, I have to think about it. So if I start thinking about like how I’m sudsing my hair up, I might not be breathing as much anymore cuz now I’m not thinking about it. So, Piper can let me know.  

[00:09:59] We’re not sure if it’s the low oxygen he picks up on or the high CO2, or a combination of them both. But he lets me know when I’m not breathing. So, that’s one of his – 

[00:10:10] Dannelle: Oh my god. 

[00:10:10] Cienna: – most important alerts. [Laughs] So, before when I got Piper, I didn’t have my pacemaker in the beginning, no one was exactly sure what was going on, and this poor dog did not sleep through the night for a very long time once he learned how to do it. Cause as soon as I’d fall asleep, I wasn’t really breathing. 

[00:10:28] So, he was very happy the day I got my pacemaker. His job became a lot easier. [Laughs] So yeah, we, we say that Piper loves sleep. He doesn’t like to be woken up in the middle night now. He’s very protective of his sleeping time. 

[00:10:41] Dannelle: Well, he’s working hard. He’s work – 

[00:10:43] Cienna: He is! 

[00:10:43] Dannelle: He’s working hard. So, before Piper was alerting you when you weren’t breathing while you were in the shower? 

[00:10:53] Cienna: Yeah, he does that like every time I take a shower. He lets me know definitely at least once every shower. “He’ll be like, no. And he’s kind of funny about it. Cause in the bathroom, Piper is a dog. He’s a service dog, but he is a dog still. And Piper’s favorite thing in the world is a ball. Like, Piper will run through – 

[00:11:13] Dannelle: [Laughs] 

[00:11:13] Cienna: – a brick wall for a ball. [Laughs] This dog and his ball –  

[00:11:16] Dannelle: [Laughs] 

[00:11:16] Cienna: – is a true love story. [Laughs] And so, he has a special bathroom ball that he plays with while I’m taking a shower, and it’s his special reward for being such a good boy and working while I’m in the shower. 

[00:11:30] So, [Music] he’ll always drop it off while I’m taking a shower and I’ll pick it up and throw it for him, and we just play fetch the whole time. But if Piper hits me with the ball and throws it at me instead of just like setting the ball, it generally means I’m not breathing. And then if he takes the ball and he puts it on the toilet where I would have to get out of the shower to go get the ball, it means I’m really not breathing. I need to stop what I’m doing. So, that’s his little system for that. [Laughs] Cause he can’t always do like his actual “alert, alert” when I’m in the shower.  

[00:12:05] [Music Ends] 

[00:12:05] Dannelle: Wow, that is absolutely incredible. So, just based on what you’ve described, it’s clear that Piper and Pamina really support an increased level of independence for you. Can you share with us a little bit more about what you’ve been able to do that you would not have been able to do without their support? 

[00:12:40] Cienna: Oh my gosh, so much. So, [Laughs] before Covid, I wasn’t a full-time wheelchair user yet. There had been times when I was in and out of a wheelchair user. But right before Covid, I was very, very ambulatory. Like I was able to go on vacation with a friend all by myself without like a human caregiver. It was just me and Piper with my friend and her service dog against the world. And so, [Laughs] because I had Piper, that year we did so much together. He made it so I could go on that trip and do those things. 

[00:13:19] Me and my family, we go to Ocean City, Maryland almost every single summer and I love to get up and watch the sunrise. And my mom didn’t always wanna get up every single morning I wanted to get up [Laughs] and watch the sunrise, and because I had Piper, she felt safe enough that I could go completely on my own to watch the sunrise at the ocean with him, and she could keep sleeping. She was good with it.  

[00:13:44] He went to the Mayo Clinic with me that year and we love going to Sedona. And with Piper, I did a little bit of hiking with his help. He does some forward momentum pull and guiding and stuff, so I don’t trip and fall. So, I actually got to get out and kind of explore it, which I would not have been able to do without him. 

[00:14:04] So, yeah, I wouldn’t be here without Piper, honestly. Especially with his not breathing alerts like, he has saved my life so many times and little Pamina is learning to too this year. She’s smaller. So, Piper weighs about 60 pounds and he is a perfect travel companion but I feel guilty and bad cuz he has to like, tuck up into that little ball at my feet on the airplane for like five hours to fly out to the Mayo Clinic. That’s a lot to ask. 

[00:14:36] So, Pamina is 20 something pounds and it’s much easier to travel with her. So, with my job I travel a lot. So, that was something that me and my service dog trainer, my doctors decided was a priority for me this time is cuz my mobility needs are too heavy for a dog itself to help me with them. So, like, why not get the little dog that’s gonna be able to travel with me so much easier? So, she has been all over the place. 

[00:15:04] Pamina is turning nine months old later this week, so she’s still a little baby, baby, but she’s got her syncope alert and is a very good girl. And her first few trips she was able to fly as a pet because she’s so small in her little carrier. But she has been, I think she’s been on seven flights now in nine months. So, she’s a, she’s a definite –  

[00:15:28] Dannelle: Wow.  

[00:15:28] Cienna: – great little traveler and has made everybody feel so much more at ease. TSA loves her. [Laughs] So, [Laughs] So, they look forward to us now coming to the airport. They’re like, [Gasps] “The puppy!” [Laughs] 

[00:15:42] Dannelle: [Laughs] Wow! 

[00:15:42] Cienna: “Who gets to give –  

[00:15:43] Dannelle: Oh my gosh. 

[00:15:43] Cienna: “ – the puppy a pat down?” So, yeah. 

[00:15:46] Dannelle: Yes. So, all of your travel. So, that’s yet another thing that your service dog’s support has allowed you to do – 

[00:15:56] Cienna: Yeah. 

[00:15:56] Dannelle: – do independently. That is wonderful. And so, you and Piper have been working together for I understand, for five years. Is that right? 

[00:16:07] Cienna: Yeah, in October, it’ll be six years. 

[00:16:11] Dannelle: And then you welcomed Pamina into your life and home just a few months ago. Is that correct? 

[00:16:19] Cienna: Yeah.  

[00:16:20] Dannelle: And how did, how do they get along? [Laughs] 

[00:16:23] Cienna: Oh my gosh. They are best friends. [Laughs]  

[00:16:24] Dannelle: [Laughs] 

[00:16:26] Cienna: Like, Piper has taken like being a big brother as possibly his favorite job ever. He loves showing Pamina how to do things. He loves being a big brother. They are always playing or cuddling. They are always together.  

[00:16:45] Dannelle: What a beautiful relationship.  

[00:16:47] Cienna: And I think Piper likes it too, cuz he gets a little time off now. So, I think he really needed that cause he, he does work so much, and I didn’t want him to get – 

[00:16:57] Dannelle: Yeah. 

[00:16:57] Cienna: – burnt out. He’s my best friend, so his happiness is my happiness. 

[00:17:02] Dannelle: Oh gosh. What a beautiful relationship that you have with them and that they have with each other. So, I would imagine that when you worked with your other dog, Opie, that it must have been difficult when it became time for Opie to retire. Can you share a little bit about what that was like for you? 

[00:17:30] Cienna: Yeah, so with Opie it was completely different cuz it was so sudden, and it was heartbreaking. It’s definitely was one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through in my entire life. He’s going everywhere with you. I remember those first couple weeks, like I’d just be talking to my mom in the car and be like, “Oh, Opie.” And I’d look in the back seat and he wouldn’t be there, and I would just start crying, you know?  

[00:17:56] Dannelle: Yeah. 

[00:17:56] Cienna: Cause like he, he goes everywhere with you. Like, at school, when I’d play concerts as a saxophonist, he’d be there at my feet on stage. Like there was nowhere that Opie wasn’t. So, it was just the hardest change ever. 

[00:18:11] So, it wasn’t until this past fall, Opie continued to live with my family after he retired. But we always knew talking to my trainer that at some point he would have to go to his retirement doggy home and find his new family because we knew I would need another service dog too at some point. And we wanted to do what was best for everybody.  

[00:18:33] And we found the most special family who is a friend of a friend, and he now lives on a very big farm with a very loving little girl and has the most fun ever. So, [Laughs] he is definitely living it up, but it was so hard to have him move to another family, but it was a lot easier knowing how happy he was. Like he loved them from the first moment he, you could tell they were his people too.  

[00:19:02] Dannelle: So hard to let someone you love go like that. And I’m just so glad that it was to a family and to a place where he could continue to be happy, in a different way. You highlight your service dogs frequently on your Instagram. If you could share a message about what it’s like to live and have this relationship with service dogs for your audience and our audience, what would it be? 

[00:19:42] Cienna: Well, [Music] that’s a hard one. Having a service dog – it’s life-changing and lifesaving in so many instances. But for a lot of people with service dogs, their disabilities are invisible, and you can’t see what that dog is doing. 

[00:20:01] Like people can’t see Piper getting ready to tell me I’m gonna pass out. They can see them hit a button and open the door and me and my wheelchair go through, but there’s so many things that they do, so much more that a lot of them do that you, you just, you can’t see. So, I think it’s important to remember that anybody with a service dog, they have a service dog because they truly need them and they are working. 

[00:20:27] They, they go through years and years of training to get to being able to do those things and to help their people and them doing those things, it brings the people they help so much independence and it gives them a whole new world. I just, I think that that is so important.  

[00:20:49] [Music Ends]  

[00:20:49] And if you want a service dog, you need to talk to your medical team and do that research and figure out how that’s gonna fit into your life because they are highly trained dogs, but they are still dogs. And so just with all the training that these dogs go through, you wanna make sure you’re doing what’s best for you and them. 

[00:21:11] Dannelle: So, those are some really important messages. One, for people who are not aware of what service dogs can do, to be aware of how vital they are for their person. Um, and then the message for people who have need of a service dog but may not be aware of that it’s even an option, to educate at them about reaching out and doing research to find out, and have them work as part of your care team. And then lastly, the importance of the relationship that you have with your service dogs and that you care for one another, which is just so beautiful. 

[00:22:09] Piper, Pamina, Opie, your family, your care team are all just amazing. You clearly live such a fulfilling and active life. Thank you so much for sharing yourself, your life and your love of life with us today, Cienna. Thank you so much for joining us today. 

[00:22:37] Cienna: Oh, I really can’t thank you enough for [Music] having me. 

[00:22:43] Dannelle: Thank you for joining our conversation with Cienna. 

[00:22:47] Man’s best friend takes on a whole new meaning when a dog can understand and respond to their human’s medical needs in ways that even humans may struggle to do. Cienna’s care team, her family, doctors, trainers, and her cherished dogs, Piper and Pamina enable her to live a life of independence and fulfillment. The depth of their mutual concern and affection makes this care partnership exceptional. 

[00:23:22] Check out our show notes to connect with and follow Cienna. 

[00:23:26] Every episode of The Caregiving Soul has a page on empoweredus.org where you can find the extended show notes, including tips and takeaways, transcripts, and relevant resource links. 

[00:23:39] For additional bonus content from this episode, and to connect with us, be sure to follow the Empowered Us social channels on Instagram @empoweredusnetwork and Twitter @empowereduspod. 

[00:23:55] The Caregiving Soul is an Empowered Us original, presented by Good Days, hosted by me, Dannelle LeBlanc. If you liked this episode, be sure to rate and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. 

[00:24:11] And remember, the right care includes care for you 

[00:24:22] [Music Ends] 

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