Tag Archives: hypoglycemia

I fell out of bed.

April 22, 2013 – 9:32 am

A little bit before 3 o’clock this morning, I fell out of bed.

Hypoglycemia, of course.

I slept through all of the CGM alarms (set to “Attentive”). Maureen was unable to revive me, and she called 911. For the first time ever, I was completely unconscious through the entire episode, until I woke up with 5 Emergency Medical Technicians holding me down after injecting glucose into my IV.

It was, unquestionably, the most severe hypoglycemic event of my life.

Sometimes, I struggle to find words to describe how lonely it can be living with diabetes.

Today, I’ll explain it this way: A little before 3:00 a.m., I experienced a severe hypoglycemic reaction. After being revived by EMTs and spending another 45 minutes or so recovering, I climbed into bed to sleep for a little over an hour. Then I woke up, shaved, took a shower, got dressed, ate breakfast, made my lunch, brushed my teeth, and dragged myself into work, even though my head is pounding and I’m so tired I can barely hold my head up.

I rode on a train with hundreds of other people who had no idea why I sat there with my eyes closed and my head in my hands for twenty minutes.

I’m working in the middle of a city of over 600,000 people who have no awareness of what I experienced last night. Even if they did, most of them would not truly understand what it was like.

And I can’t escape the surreal feeling that right now, I sit at a desk in the middle of 15 colleagues who are blissfully unaware of the fact that a few hours ago, I nearly lost my life.
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Lows | Also tagged | Comments (9)

Sometimes the highs are worth it.

March 11, 2013 – 10:39 am

I have a lot to talk about this week. But first, I need to get this thing out of my head from yesterday. It’s about a low. One of those nasty, thrashing around, call 911 hypoglycemic events that we all hate to think about. Or talk about. I’m fine, no real harm done, and the EMS people were only at the house for about five minutes because I’m always better by the time they get there anyway, though the thing I hate most about those times (which have been very infrequent) is that they have to be there at all instead of being out helping someone who really needs to be helped.

The thing about the situation yesterday is that it could have been avoided. There are two ways that I could have avoided such a low. And I have a real point to make at the end, I mean it.

The first: I should lay the groundwork here by saying it was around five o’clock, it was already a full day, with a warm afternoon which included my first outdoor bike ride of the year and catching up on cleaning the kitchen within an inch of its life, cleaning the bathroom within an inch of its life, and doing the laundry. I had just come up from the basement after switching over the laundry for the third time, and Maureen said “Whoa, slow down, come sit down, you look pale”. I could feel myself getting low downstairs, and I took an extra couple of minutes (7? 8? 10? Who knows?) to finish everything down there before going back upstairs. You can see where this is going, yes? So I knew I was low when I came up. But I sat down anyway without getting anything or even grabbing my meter. Maureen is like, “You look low… I’m getting some juice and something to eat”. I told her not to, I have a tube of Glucolift tabs in my pocket, and if she could, please get my meter. I didn’t want to overtreat and kill my appetite for what was shaping up to be a nice Sunday dinner. I wanted to know where my BG was so I could ingest an appropriate amount to get back up to an appropriate range.

So in about two seconds (she’s superhero fast like that) she brings me juice, honey, and my meter. “Here, drink this before you test”. “No, I want to test first”. “No, drink this first”. I had to move her hand away from trying to hand me juice while I tried to get a drop of blood to my test strip. And now, with my brain turning to mush, each attempt by her, each word by her, meant that I had to start at zero again and concentrate from the beginning to inch my way toward that strip. And in the end, that drop of blood never made it there, and the meter, myself, and Maureen all made it onto the floor.

If I would have been left alone for just a few seconds, I probably (probably…) would have gotten that reading and then started treating right away.

The second reason: Of course, the worst could have been avoided if I would have just obeyed orders and immediately started drinking juice and eating honey. And popping Glucolifts like they were candy (they do taste like candy, I confess). But I didn’t. And that’s what brings me to the crux of this post.

Here’s what I learned from this experience: Sure, if I would have been on my own, I probably would have tested first, and I’m pretty sure everything would have been okay and there would have been no need for EMS intervention or anything like that.

But the thing is, I wasn’t by myself. There were two people in this scenario, and other than physically, the other person was affected just as much or more than I was by the whole episode. People With Diabetes: Do you think that the other people in your life aren’t affected at all by what you go through? Do you think that they don’t feel for you at these moments? Do you understand that they feel responsible, sometimes guilty for not helping you enough? If I can help it, I do not want to be responsible for heaping more on my loved ones than they already have to endure.

What I learned from this is that sometimes, it’s just better to risk overtreating and suffer the high BG later in order to save your loved ones the unbearable and unnecessary grief, guilt, and fear of the next time. Holy crap, I would give anything to erase that now. Including a little bump in my A1c or a CGM graph or a downward-carb modified dinner.
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Lows | Also tagged , , , | Comments (7)

There should be stoppage time.

February 25, 2013 – 9:17 am

There’s not really a lot that depresses me about diabetes. Okay, there’s a lot that could depress me about diabetes. But I’m the kind of person that would let those things really get me down if I let them. So often, I choose not to think of them. Very often, I choose not to think of them, if you know what I mean. It’s one of the few parts of my life where I try to remain positive at all times.

But every once in a while… well, you just have to let yourself rant.

I was working around the house Saturday afternoon, cleaning, doing the laundry, that kind of thing. At some point, I went upstairs to make the bed that had been left unmade since morning. I had a couple of other things to do up there too, so I took the iPad with me and started up the Pandora® so I’d have some music while I worked.

Some 45 minutes later, the bed was only half made, and I was sucking back juice and honey. A bright 43 mg/dL showed on my meter.

Hey, as much as we would like them not to, these things happen. But where was my brain during this time? What happened to those 45 minutes? I have a right to ask… I’ll never get those 45 minutes back, and I feel cheated somehow. For three quarters of an hour, my brain was jello. It let me down.

Then I had to explain it to everyone in the house, and answer the questions like: “Did you know you were going low?” “Did you bolus too much at lunch?” “Why didn’t you get some juice sooner?”

The answer to all of those questions is, I DON’T KNOW. My brain checked out for that time. I have almost no recollection of anything other than fidgeting too much with the sheets and blankets and pillows on the bed, and walking around the bedroom what seemed like a hundred times. I don’t have an explanation for any of that either.

But I want my 45 minutes back. I feel like someone, something, some cosmic timekeeper, owes me 45 minutes extra. Stoppage time, they call it in soccer. I want my time back! At the end of my life, there should be a lot of stoppage time left over.

If, somehow, I ever do get my time back… trust me, I’m going to make very good use of it. What would you do with your extra stoppage time?
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Lows | Also tagged , , | Comments (5)

Almost Bachelorhood

February 21, 2013 – 10:00 am

The Great Spousal Unit is staying overnight with a client’s pet this week. And The Live-In Niece has been away for most of this week too. That means almost bachelorhood for me. The good part, where you can eat what you want, watch what you want on the tele… not the bad, lonely part. As long as they don’t stay away too long.

It’s nice generally, because absence sometimes does make the heart grow fonder, and because it’s nice to have a break once in a while, even though we’ve been together for almost 20 years.

But there’s no denying the fact that it means I’m alone all the time. Not a big deal… I was on my own for the first two years or so with this disease. But what does it mean to be on your own when you’re usually not? It means two things.

First, it means the obvious: Getting through the night without my BG going low. I can’t say that I do anything that’s way out of the norm. Except that I try to go to bed with a higher BG than normal. So instead of say, going to bed at 150-160 mg/dL, I’m going to bed at around 170-180 mg/dL. The flip side of that safety measure is that I’m usually higher in the morning than I would like (138 mg/dL this morning). And of course, there’s no guarantee that my body’s metabolism wouldn’t kick in harder during my sleep and cause me to go low anyway. But it’s something I know I can do. I can’t bring myself to set the alarm for the middle of the night so I can check how I’m doing. If you’re doing that, I admire and respect your vigilance.

Second, it means that I have to acknowledge the fact that I sometimes rely on my spouse too much to help me through those hypoglycemic moments. And it’s not even those moments when it happens—What Maureen does really well is making sure that I have everything I need to fight off a low wherever, and whenever, it happens. She lets me know that “Hey, you do ______ when you’re going low. Watch out for that.” It’s the general feeling of “someone’s got your back”. It’s a quality that’s incalculable, and I’m lucky to have it.

So even though I have my dog and my second dog (also known as my cat), I’m reminded this week of what it’s really like to be alone and managing the diabetes. And I’m reminded how lucky I am that it’s not the norm.

How about you? Any strategies for when you’re away from your significant other? How does it make you feel?
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Diabetes | Also tagged , , | Comments (2)

Watch out demon.

February 19, 2013 – 10:49 am

I’m looking for it. Looking for that demon. The one lurking out there somewhere, ready to strike when I least expect it. I have to constantly be on my guard to keep the demon at bay.

There’s a semi-predictable arc to my exercise regimens. I start out easy, just trying to get used to working out again, trying to get my stamina to a higher level, trying to burn a few calories. That usually takes a couple of weeks to a month.

Then I’ll start to kick it in a little. I’ll get to the gym or out on the road a little more frequently. At the same time, I’ll ramp up the intensity or my workouts… a lot.

It’s usually during this time that the demon comes out from the depths of wherever the demon lives. The demon takes the form of a super-quick, super-low hypoglycemia event. One of those bad ones. The kind where you pass out, or nearly pass out, and sometimes someone has to call 911 for you.

The demon rears its ugly head around two weeks or so into this more intense workout regimen. The low happens so fast that one minute, I’m walking, or I’m on the phone, or I’m cleaning the house, and the next minute I’m on the floor. Almost that fast. Without warning. Sound familiar?

The worst part is, this demon-low thing sometimes makes me back off on the workout routine. Once or twice it has even made me give up on the workout routine entirely. I know that if I’m going to accomplish my goals and participate in the events I have planned this year, I’ve got to get through this stage and keep on going. Even if I do experience an awful low again.

And guess what? Over the weekend, I hit the two week mark in this more intense workout stage. So now I’ve got to be more vigilant. I’ll probably be checking the BGs a little more often. I may even give in to a mid-afternoon snack, despite the fact that I’m never hungry in the middle of the afternoon. Am I willing to work on the high side of my glucose just to keep the demon at bay? No… because the demon doesn’t care if you’re generally high for two or three weeks before coming down into a good range. When you hit that range, it will be waiting to strike. So I would just be putting off confronting the demon for a little while.

But I’m armed with a few new tools to help me now, and a lot more information. I read your blogs people, and I pay attention to what works for you and how you try to keep the demon out of your own lives. I read from experts in the field, be they a blogger or a medical professional.

I’m hoping that this kind of information gathering and vigilance will make things different this time. To be honest, I’m ready to punch the demon in its face this time. And even if the demon gets out, I will do my best to remain mentally strong enough to not let it bother me too much. Let’s face it… sometimes, the real victory is in getting up and starting again after you’ve been knocked down.

So watch out demon… you will not get the better of me this time.
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Exercise | Also tagged , , | Comments (2)