The Great Spousal Unit talks about how, sometimes when I have those low blood sugar moments, I turn into someone she doesn’t know (unlike the Snickers commercials, where you turn into someone you do know). She says that I go to a different place. She doesn’t know where I’ve gone, she just wants me to come back.
So now when I think of going hypo, I think of going to that place on the other side of the tracks, where I don’t always visit. And since “hypoglycemia”, or “hypoglycemic episodes”, is way too sanitary to describe what happens in those moments, I’ve been thinking that a geographical reference might describe it better.
For instance, I live in Baltimore, so I might say that I “Dundalked” last weekend while I was working in the yard (sorry everyone from Dundalk– I really love your little hamlet… but I don’t visit often). When I lived in Cincinnati, I could’ve said that I “Newported” yesterday, and man, did it suck. If I still lived in Columbus, Georgia, I could’ve apologized for being late… but that early morning trip to “Phenix City” really knocked me down.
If we wanted to be a little more generic, we could simply say that we crossed the state line. “I crossed the state line last night, and it took me a long time to get back. Wow, I am so tired this morning”.
Maybe if we add a directional point of view, we could come up with something that could be descriptive for both hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia. Imagine this exchange between a patient and their endocrinologist:
Endo: “So, have you experienced any bad south of the border incidents in the last 90 days?”
Patient: “No, but I went north of the border a couple of weeks back. Bent the cannula during a set change. After some failed rage bolusing, I knew something had to be wrong, so I changed the set again. Took me most of the day to come back in-state.”
You know, I kinda like that south/north of the border idea. That Endo question is so sexy, it almost makes you want to say yes, no? If you were to break away from the clinical definition of hypo- or hyper-glycemia, how would you describe it?
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