In university, when Cienna Ditri lost consciousness, hit her head and nearly drowned in the bathtub, it was her beloved pet dog who saved her life. But that was only the first time.
Her life has been saved many times by a number of different dogs. In fact, twenty things have said that her service dog Piper continues to save her life every single day.
Cienna may appear like any other woman in her twenties, but in reality, she lives with many chronic diseases and is affected by their symptoms on a daily basis. One of these conditions is Hypokalemic cyclic palsy, which usually begins in childhood or early adolescence.
This rare disease causes episodes of extreme muscle weakness, temporarily incapacitating the muscles in your arms and legs. The intensity and frequency of these attacks vary, and they can cause weakness or paralysis that lasts from a few hours to a whole day.
But she doesn’t let that stop her from living her life. Cienna has the faith to follow her dreams because she has such an incredible service dog by her side.
“On a day-to-day basis, Piper helps me more than I can honestly count. He helped me a lot in closing the door behind me, picking up things I dropped on the floor or fetching a water bottle for me, all the normal things service dogs do, like pressing the little accessibility buttons for the door. . But Piper is also a medical alert service dog, so it does a lot of alerting to let me know before things happen,” says Cienna.
Not only that, but Piper also alerts Cienna when her blood sugar is low, when she’s about to faint, and when she has allergic reactions. How? Piper is trained to smell medical changes. He even helped her stabilize her heart rate and blood pressure. But the most essential of Piper’s skills is the warning when she’s not breathing.
Cienna and Piper have been together for just under 5 years, and in that time they have developed a super special relationship.
“He loves it when I roll really fast in my wheelchair or when we’re in the ocean like jumping out of a boat. He likes to do all that, but he also just loves to cuddle in bed. It goes really well with any type of day you want to have, it is the ideal dog,” she said.
After a near-death incident in the bathtub, she received her first service dog, Obi. But after years of being her constant companion, Obi developed a seizure disorder and officially retired as a “working dog”. Now, he lives a lavish life as a full-fledged couch potato dog.
Featured pictures: Facebook
