Tag Archives: lows

The low from Saturday.

August 29, 2012 – 7:44 am

I’m not sure there’s a moral to this story. There doesn’t have to be one anyway.

I really don’t want to write about this, and as you can probably tell, I’m having trouble getting started. But if I’m going to tell my story, well… this is one of the chapters.

I’m a typical blogger in that I love to talk about myself. I also like to paint a nice picture of myself whenever possible. I don’t really want to mention anything that doesn’t make me look good. But that’s what this post is about.

Long story short: On Saturday, I over-bolused for dinner and whatever I snacked on later (I don’t even remember what it was). Later, about 1:45 in the morning, The Great Spousal Unit woke me up and said “You should go test your blood sugar”. It took me what seemed like a long time to actually get up. I was awake for sure, but… non-responsive would be the best way to describe it.

So Maureen did what she normally does in these situations.

Step 1: Try to shove juice, honey, peanut putter in my mouth.

She tried to shove some things in my mouth, but I was still feeling very full from whatever I had consumed earlier. By this point I knew I was low, but I wanted to take it slow. Bad Strategy. And, of course, I was tired and I really wanted to sleep. It was getting harder and harder to motivate me. We made it downstairs to the kitchen, but still, I was having trouble coping. Enter Step 2.

Step 2: If step 1 doesn’t work, call 911.

Maureen later admitted that she probably jumped the gun on this one a bit. But I reminded her that it’s not her job to know exactly how I am at any given moment, and if she’s at all unsure, make the call. It took a long, long time for me to come to this way of thinking. I never want an EMT to come and help me when they might be needed for something more important. But for Maureen, at that moment, nothing was more important. They were coming to help her as much as to help me.

I checked my BG once we got to the kitchen: 43. About 5 minutes later, the call went in to 911. About 5 minutes after that, the EMTs came through the front door (the local fire house is about a mile away). By this time, I’m groggy but able to make conversation, able to drink some juice and eat a little. The EMTs were great. They knew what was going on, and they were content to just wait it out with me.

So we waited. Those 15 minutes we were all standing in the kitchen seemed like forever. Then I checked again: 89.

Back to some semblance of normal. The EMTs left, and TGSU and I sat in front of the TV for a while longer to make sure my glucose was going in the right direction. Kelly at Diabetesaliciousness talked about waiting out a high Monday night, and being really tired, wanting just to sleep, and having to wait. And how that’s one of the things that sucks about diabetes. I agree.

Well, that’s what it was like for me, except from a low. I was super, super tired. And cold, very cold. Lows always do that to me. And I had to wait so I could check my glucose again. 20 minutes later: 131.

Not much more to it than that. Everything turned out okay in the end. I could have done without the drama though.
 
 
 

By StephenS | Posted in Lows | Also tagged , , | Comments (1)

Diabetes Blog Week: Day 2– One Great Thing.

May 15, 2012 – 6:35 am

It’s Diabetes Blog Week, Day 2. Today, we’re all talking about one great thing that we do well.

I tend to be one of those people who rarely sees anything that I do as great. I like to think (hope?) that I have the two great qualities all PWDs seem to have: empathy and perseverance. But if I have those qualities, and all PWDs have these qualities, does this make me great? Am I off topic here? Let me re-focus and get back to the subject at hand.

If there’s one thing that I seem to do well, it’s been staying as physically tough as I can be. Now, I’ve never been a stellar athlete. But I love to compete. And even though I’ll never make the Olympics, especially at my age, I’m still able to perform at a level that’s better than average. While that’s helped me complete my first two triathlons last year at age 49, and while I’m training for a two day 150 mile ride in four weeks, that still doesn’t have much to do with diabetes.

But maybe the physical training has made me physically tough when it comes to my diabetes. I know it’s helped me with my A1cs in the last few years (in order the last year and a half: 7.1, 7.0, 6.7, 6.5, 6.4, 6.3). And I don’t really know for sure, but I get the feeling that it’s helped me recover from energy-sucking lows too. Those kind of lows you get in the middle of the day, when all you want to do after is find a sunny spot, curl up, and sleep for about 5 hours, but you pick yourself up and say “Let’s do that important thing now”. It’s either training or pride that keeps me going in those moments. I hope it’s the former.

And the thing is, I like how it makes me feel too. I totally buy into the endorphin rush. I like that I’m doing more athletically than most people my age. And now that I’m starting to read about some of my fellow d-bloggers who have experienced depression in one form or another as a part of their diabetic life, I’m feeling like I really need those feel-goods any way I can get them.

So I know I’m totally tooting my own horn here, but I’m digging the fact that my diabetic life also includes an athletic component. And I’m going to keep it that way as long as I can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I have no medical training. If you consider anything written here as medical, legal, financial, or any other kind of advice, you’re out of your mind. Please speak to a licensed professional before making any changes that might affect your health. Any of the original content found on this site is my property and should not be reproduced, copied, or otherwise used without the author’s expressed written consent.

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

A post about posts.

April 18, 2012 – 11:48 pm

I don’t know if I can handle Wordless Wednesday… I’m too much of a writer for that. Let’s see if I can just direct you to a couple of great posts I found today, with a minimal amount of explanation:

Mike Hoskins talks about lows in public. The public nature of hypoglycemia adds an extra, unwanted element. Find out how it affects Mike at The Diabetic’s Corner Booth.

And Scully got out to a local Crit race (I’m sure she knows what that means) Tuesday, and she talks about “Preparing her Diabetes”. I’m always fascinated by an athlete’s story. Read it at Canadian D-gal.

Enjoy!

By StephenS | Posted in Additional Inspiration | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

This is the one about lows.

April 16, 2012 – 5:41 pm

Went to work on the fence after breakfast yesterday.  Joining me after a while was a 16 year old neighbor (kids will do almost anything when there’s money to be made… and that’s the way it should be).  Nearby were The Great Spousal Unit and The Live-In Niece, who were doing yard work.  Just before noon, Maureen went to run a few errands.

Now, I made sure to under-, not over-bolus at breakfast, knowing that I would be working hard on an 80 degree day.  But the life of someone with type 1 is full of times when the best laid plans are messed up by an uncooperative pancreas, metabolism, pump, (choose your word here).  At about 12:00, I started to get that feeling.  Nothing felt right.  I had to reposition myself multiple times to try to complete even the simplest of tasks.  And before I knew it, 5 minutes to wire a section of fence to a post became 15 minutes.  By now, the 16 year old is looking at me like I’m a 95 year old who can’t get it together, and I’m thinking, “If I can just finish this task, we can break for lunch”.

That’s when Rachel happened by and asked, “It’s a little past noon, are you guys gonna get some lunch?”.  And I gave her that look.  The one that says I’m too proud to ask, but can you please help me?  The one that completely freaks her out.
 
“Uncle Stephen, do you need me to get you some juice?”  I said no, we’ll be finished here soon, and we can have some lunch, but she didn’t hear me.  Because she was getting juice.  And before I knew it, she was back and I was drinking it.  Crisis averted.

What I hate isn’t going low.  It’s the fact that your mind checks out at the very time the rest of your body is screaming for help.  Then there’s the whole macho guy thing, where I know I’m getting worse, but I can suck it up and get through this, then medicate. And I don’t like relying on anyone else to come to my rescue.

This is how most of my lows are, when the bg is lower than 65 or so.  Not horrible, but not without some danger.  I’ve been working on it.  I know that I can’t always see the lows coming… no one can do that.  But I have a set of procedures so to speak, something that will (hopefully) be instinctive in these situations, even if my brain is already taking a break.  It works, most of the time.  But yesterday, because of the heat, because I was already sweating, because I didn’t stop working immediately, because I couldn’t remember all of the steps I had worked out in my head, because, because, because, I will still keep working on it.

Perfection isn’t possible… but improvement is always worth the effort.

 

By StephenS | Posted in Lows | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)