ORO VALLEY, Ariz. (KGUN) — Averie Echevarria was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes right after her first birthday. Less than 1% of all children are diagnosed in the first year of life, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Jesse Echevarria is Averie's father. He explains it took a while for any hospital to diagnose her.
“Hospitals were saying we were kind of being helicopter parents, so we listened and we went home, like okay maybe. But then she progressively got worse.”
Echevarria and his wife knew something wasn't right with Averie.
Finally, a hospital checked her blood sugar level and determined she was in Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA). This happens when your body doesn't have enough insulin to allow blood sugar into your cells for use as energy.
“I’ve been setting 15-minute alarms on my phone at night to wake up every 15 minutes in hopes that I never have to get that reaction again to her being so low," Eschevarria explains. There was a time when he woke up in the middle of the night and saw Averie's blood sugar was dropping fast at 40 mg/dL, which is considered severely low.
Because of Averie's young age, it is extra challenging for her to understand the severity of her disease and be able to communicate how she feels properly with her parents. So, the Echevarrias turned to Diabetic Alert Dogs of America.
"The idea is that our dogs are alerting way before we’re so symptomatic where we can’t go and get the juice ourselves," Shelby Joachimi explained. She is a Client Advisor and Lead Trainer at Diabetic Alert Dogs of America.
“We all trained for the company and getting up every two hours in the middle of the night to train the dogs so there is a lot, it also includes their service vest, their collars, their leashes, their ID cards, things like that," Joachimi explained.
A diabetic alert dog isn't cheap. The Echevarrias are expecting this to cost them at least $15,000.
"Obviously, that's a lot of money. But in our eyes, it's valid to give her every chance and everything she can have a better life and live as normal of a life as she can," Echevarria said.
Joachimi said training the dogs is a 24/7 job.
"We need to schedule their time to make sure that they’re not sleeping at the same time as we’re sleeping, so when the dog is on their bed and we’re sleeping, they’re subconsciously searching for the signs. They’re not sleeping; they’re just on standby."
The dogs are saliva-trained. Joachimi also explains they can provide the dog for people at an extra cost, or people are welcome to bring their own dogs in to be trained. But there's a chance it may not work if the dog is not suited to be a service animal.
"We need dogs with long prominent snouts because the longer the snout, the more scent receptors they have so the better the scent, more accurate more reliable the dogs going to be," Joachimi said.
Echevarria explains how eye-opening it has been. “You know, we never thought… how young someone could be in dealing with these issues and how much it can truly impact your life.”
You can follow along on Averie's journey here.
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Athena Kehoe is a reporter for KGUN 9, she joined the KGUN 9 team in July of 2024 after graduating from Arizona State University. Share your story ideas with Athena by emailing athena.kehoe@kgun9.com or by connecting on X/Twitter.
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